Create a Backup Image 101

Greetings,

My wifey has a laptop that was set up a very specific way to work with a very specific printer. We had to pay a guy over a hundred clams to make it work this way and (call me paranoid) but I think he made a point of not letting me see how he did it so that he could charge us this again in the future.

So I'm thinking I should create a system image backup. So that if the laptop fails or is sold off I simply take that backup and apply it to the new laptop.

QUESTION 1 -- Am I making sense so far and is THAT how images 'work'? If yes --

QUESTION 2 -- Is there a way to do this without backing up ever last item on the SSD? Meaning it backs up the system and every last preference but doesn't bother with photos and such? Or is just smarter to back it ALL up just in case?

QUESTION 3 -- Simple affordable software for this?

Thanks all,

Don't labor on Labor Day unless you're bored like me!

You can do an image using any free imaging software you need to do the whole disk with all paritions and create a bootable disk to recover it normally built into the software. You need to update it regulary as updates come and major updates you should do one before and after

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The Pool Man said:

Greetings,

My wifey has a laptop that was set up a very specific way to work with a very specific printer. We had to pay a guy over a hundred clams to make it work this way and (call me paranoid) but I think he made a point of not letting me see how he did it so that he could charge us this again in the future.

So I'm thinking I should create a system image backup. So that if the laptop fails or is sold off I simply take that backup and apply it to the new laptop.

QUESTION 1 -- Am I making sense so far and is THAT how images 'work'? If yes --

Images are most often used to restore to the same PC, rather than to some new PC, but yes generally you have the right idea. The key word is "restore". That's a formal process.

QUESTION 2 -- Is there a way to do this without backing up ever last item on the SSD? Meaning it backs up the system and every last preference but doesn't bother with photos and such? Or is just smarter to back it ALL up just in case?

Images are made on a partition by partition basis. You choose the partitions to include and exclude. If you don't include C, you aren't going to restore the system. If your applications are on D and you don't include D, then your applications would not be restored. Etc.

If your pictures are on C, they would be part of the image file and would be part of the restoration. Some imaging applications let you exclude certain folders within a given partition, but I'm not sure how well that works in actual practice. The best idea is to backup your photos through some non-imaging means.

QUESTION 3 -- Simple affordable software for this?

Macrium Reflect is the common choice here. There are others---Aomei Backupper, Acronis, etc.

If you want to exclude files/folders from the backup image, there are a few programs that can do it.

O&O diskimage - free giveaway of Diskimage pro v12 stll available, I think.
DiskGenius - free version works fine for this task.

Another way is to make the backup is in wim format, dism++ is handy for that, and you make exclusions in the options>more settings screen. Backing up to wim takes a while, so you might prefer O&O diskimage or diskgenius,

The Pool Man said:

Greetings,

We had to pay a guy over a hundred clams to make it work this way and (call me paranoid) but I think he made a point of not letting me see how he did it so that he could charge us this again in the future.

Do you mind if I can ask you, what the make and model of the printer is, that had to require a special and costly set-up

The problem with porting the backup to another PC is that the drivers will be incorrect for the new PC. Windows 10 might be able to figure out the correct ones to use but this isn't guaranteed to work.

Macrium Reflect is an excellent product. The paid for version has a redeploy feature which is useful when you want to restore to a different PC as you require Re-deploying Windows to new hardware using Macrium ReDeploy - KnowledgeBase - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

The problem with porting the backup to another PC is that the drivers will be incorrect for the new PC. Windows 10 might be able to figure out the correct ones to use but this isn't guaranteed to work.

Paid versions of imaging programs typically have "adjust to new hardware" feature. It is included in the giveaway of O&O diskimage Pro. There might be other giveaways around - Aomei does them sometimes, for example. However, O&O has both exclusions from images and adjust to new hardware features.

Registration for your FREE license of O&O DiskImage 12

https://www.oo-software.com/en/downl...duct=OODI12PRO