Backup of Windows

ChadBonk · 28 Jun 2018

Afternoon folks!
So,... I'm not exactly a newbie... I can get my way around and I built my own machine. So I have an idea. I just beat my head up against a wall trying to figure out why my Bios and Windows was taking forever to load when it literally should take 20 secs. I'm a firm believer in backing up everything in multiple places. There's nothing on my C Drive that I'm concerened with losing, other than time when I need to refresh a windows install or in this case where I was merely 5 minutes from wiping the system after what I thought tried everything. Ended up being a corrupted Micro SD card, black nonetheless, plugged into a black card reader. So overlooking it being in there is an understatement. Getting to my point, I know there are several ways to back up your PC. However, what is the most efficient way to back up a C Drive with settings and programs. Is it possible other than cloning the drive? Is there a way I can do a clean install off a Creation Disk for Windows, and then have all my settings on some type of other device where I can Copy them over?

Stitch194 · 28 Jun 2018

Download Macrium Reflect, it's an excellent backup/cloning program. Create regular backup images of your entire C drive or partitions on an external USB device. Macrium backups can be scheduled, full, incremental or differential.

Access Denied · 28 Jun 2018

Stitch194 said:

Download Macrium Reflect, it's an excellent backup/cloning program. Create regular backup images of your entire C drive or partitions on an external USB device. Macrium backups can be scheduled, full, incremental or differential.

^^^^^

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect | Windows 10 Tutorials

NavyLCDR · 28 Jun 2018

Stitch194 said:

Download Macrium Reflect, it's an excellent backup/cloning program. Create regular backup images of your entire C drive or partitions on an external USB device. Macrium backups can be scheduled, full, incremental or differential.

Or even faster to a second internal HDD or SSD. Most of my computer's have SSDs and a second HDD. The HDD has a recovery partition (FAT32) partition on it with the Macrium Rescue drive and an NTFS partition for holding the backup of the primary drive. If the primary SSD fails, all I have to do is boot from the second installed HDD and restore the backup image to the new or wiped primary SSD.

f14tomcat · 28 Jun 2018

For added insurance against Ransomware and system failure, also have backups to a detachable external drive, even if only done weekly/monthly. And always store safely. Never leave plugged in.

Steve C · 30 Jun 2018

I use Macrium Reflect scheduled backups to two locations. I do scheduled backups of the system drive to a partition on an internal HDD and to an external drive. I also backup the OS and all user files to an external drive. Every month I also do a full manual backup to another external drive which is stored separately from the PC.

dalchina · 30 Jun 2018

Is there a way I can do a clean install off a Creation Disk for Windows, and then have all my settings on some type of other device where I can Copy them over?

It is possible to do a clean install, install either Laplink Pc Mover or an Easeus Todo program, mount the disk image from a previous or different installation, run the program you've installed, and it will transfer the programs and settings from the mounted disk image.

That's intended to support a transfer from an old PC to a new PC, and when upgrading from one OS to another, but could be used from one Windows installation to another on the same PC of course.

Just for interest, as you've asked the question- and is something I've used successfully, for about 95% of 100s of installed programs.

Geneo · 01 Jul 2018

Nobody mentioned restores. A backup is only as good as it's ability to successfully restore it. I have done hundreds of restores with Macrium Reflect without an issue. I keep local copies on SSD and HDD and periodically backup to external drives for the reasons mentioned by others.

cereberus · 02 Jul 2018

dalchina said:

It is possible to do a clean install, install either Laplink Pc Mover or an Easeus Todo program, mount the disk image from a previous or different installation, run the program you've installed, and it will transfer the programs and settings from the mounted disk image.

That's intended to support a transfer from an old PC to a new PC, and when upgrading from one OS to another, but could be used from one Windows installation to another on the same PC of course.

Just for interest, as you've asked the question- and is something I've used successfully.

These tools are expensive and are not 100% perfect. The only time worth using these really is of you have to clean install e.g. a repair upgrade has failed.

emilywang · 03 Jul 2018

Hi, if you runs on Windows 7/8/10, you can follow the tutorial:
Click the Start orb > All Programs > Maintenance > Backup and Restore
Go to Control Panel > System and Security > Backup and Restore
Step 1: Click “Create a system image” in the left pane.
Step 2: In this window, select the location you’re going to save the system image. Click “Next”.
The next screen will offer to backup any other volume you want to include in the process, while the main system partition and the boot partition are both automatically selected and cannot be touched.
Step 3: At the final confirmation window, click “Start backup” to start the process.
If that fails to work, you can turn to a 3rd-party tool to backup system in a much easier way.