What tools are needed to back up laptop to external HDD?

ignatzatsonic said:

Why would you bother to install Macrium on an external D, E, or F drive---when it can be installed on the internal C like anything else---with the bootable flash drive as a fallback.

I realize programs can be installed in oddball locations, but why jump through that hoop?

My question is why this thread has gone on this long. It is not like we are coding some new kind of software and need to discuss bugs. Backing up has been around since the DOS days and has become so much easier.

Delly10 said:

I would install it on my internal main drive at first in order to create a backup image of the drive onto my external drive, but I thought that MR would be installing some sort of boot mechanism onto the external drive along with the backup image in order to be able to restore that image if necessary.

No.

Macrium creates an image file.

It's just a file. One file. Has an mrimg extension.

It's a valuable file. I'd back it up like I'd back up any useful file.

It's a big file--about half the size of the total occupied space on whatever partitions you choose to include.


The file is not bootable or very useful as it sits. It becomes useful when it is restored.

You CAN open it up and capture files from it if needed (rarely useful), but it mainly just sits there in its original state UNTIL you restore it.

Also, consider this:

If parts of Macrium were on an external D or E, those parts would NOT be included in the image you made of your primary drive. So they would not be restored when you restored that image.

ignatzatsonic said:

No.

Macrium creates an image file.

It's just a file. One file. Has an mrimg extension.

It's a valuable file. I'd back it up like I'd back up any useful file.

It's a big file--about half the size of the total occupied space on whatever partitions you choose to include.


The file is not bootable or very useful as it sits. It becomes useful when it is restored.

You CAN open it up and capture files from it if needed (rarely useful), but it mainly just sits there in its original state UNTIL you restore it.

And to do that restoration requires the bootable flash drive?

Delly10 said:

And to do that restoration requires the bootable flash drive?

To repeat no------------------------------------------if you can still boot from your primary internal C

ignatzatsonic said:

To repeat no------------------------------------------if you can still boot from your primary internal C

Ok. I guess what confuses me about it all is why I'd be using the backup image at all if my primary drive is still working. I had a previous computer's drive simply die on me and need replacement, but I guess there are other types of failures that require a backup to be used even though the internal drive still works, still boots, and can still run Marcrium but would still require using the backup image it created. I just haven't experienced it yet.

Delly10 said:

Ok. I guess what confuses me about it all is why I'd be using the backup image at all if my primary drive is still working. I had a previous computer's drive simply die on me and need replacement, but I guess there are other types of failures that require a backup to be used even though the internal drive still works, still boots, and can still run Marcrium and would require using the backup image it created. I just haven't experienced it yet.

How about viruses? Or a poorly tested software (Windows or otherwise) update that still lets you boot but is pathetic in some other regard?

If I had to guess, I'd guess that over half of all restorations are done to a perfectly good drive----but the user is hosed and the PC is not working well. He could trouble shoot that for hours---------or instead restore to an image made last week before the trouble began----in 30 minutes.

ignatzatsonic said:

How about viruses? Or a poorly tested software (Windows or otherwise) update that still lets you boot but is pathetic in some other regard?

If I had to guess, I'd guess that over half of all restorations are done to a perfectly good drive----but the user is hosed and the PC is not working well. He could trouble shoot that for hours---------or instead restore to an image made last week before the trouble began----in 30 minutes.

You make a good point! I've had that happen before. I used a "restore point" once to fix such a problem. If I'm not mistaken, Windows 10 doesn't have those anymore. I believe I had Win7 at the time.

One additional question that I won't labor on for too long: Before I do my backup to the external drive, I was going to delete everything on the external drive first, but I want to check first to make sure it's safe to do that. All my files from when it was used as an internal drive for my previous computer are on there, and I'm done looking through them for anything I want to keep. So, to make room, I was going to delete everything before making a backup image. Is that ok to do, or are there certain files on hard drives that must remain in place in order to be functional?

Win 10 has restore points.

Often they work. Sometimes they don't, with a "failure to restore error". Not as reliable as Macrium, but good enough to at least try for many issues.

No reason at all to delete anything from whatever drive will store the image.......no more reason than if it were a roast beef recipe instead of an image file.

It's just a file. Period.

You don't need to put it anywhere special----assuming it will fit. It's big.

And..........you cannot save it onto any partition IF that partition is itself part of the image file............which in your case would mean you couldn't store it anywhere on your primary internal IF the image file included ALL of the partitions on the internal.

You could make a separate partition on the internal, say G for instance. Then make an image of everything except G. And store the image file on G.....................................but that would be foolish. Because you would not have access to the image file if the primary internal dropped dead.

ignatzatsonic said:

Win 10 has restore points.

Often they work. Sometimes they don't, with a "failure to restore error". Not as reliable as Macrium, but good enough to at least try for many issues.

No reason at all to delete anything from whatever drive will store the image.......no more reason than if it were a roast beef recipe instead of an image file.

It's just a file. Period.

You don't need to put it anywhere special----assuming it will fit. It's big.

And..........you cannot save it onto any partition IF that partition is itself part of the image file............which in your case would mean you couldn't store it anywhere on your primary internal IF the image file included ALL of the partitions on the internal.

You could make a separate partition on the internal, say G for instance. Then make an image of everything except G. And store the image file on G.....................................but that would be foolish. Because you would not have access to the image file if the primary internal dropped dead.

As you said, the image file is big. That's why I wanted to delete whatever is on the external drive that I don't want anymore, which is everything that is on there now. I wanted to make all the room I'll need for the image, and whatever room I'll need in the future when the image is updated.
I just want to make sure there aren't any files that are not good to delete because of being required to be there for the hard drive to function--just as a person wouldn't want to delete anything from their OS and cause their computer not to function.