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#11
Your current laptop will run a 64-bit OS. As for the storage, go at least a minimum of 1TB and for RAM, go no less than 8GB, 12 is preferable with all current Operating Systems.
Going to W10, need advice on laptop.
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New #12
I disagree with needing 1 TB of storage. If the user is completely happy with a 256 GB SSD running Windows 7 now, there is no need to expand that to 1 TB just to run Windows 10 instead of Windows 7. Lots of low end computers are running Windows 10 on 32 GB eMMC drives - which is problematic when wanting to do a major version upgrade of Windows 10. 64 GB is plenty for the OS itself and will easily allow all updates. Anything above 64 GB needed depends upon which programs/apps the user wants to run in addition to the OS and how much data the user wants to store.
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Posts : 5,048 Windows 10/11 Pro x64, Various Linux Builds, Networking, Storage, Cybersecurity Specialty.
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New #14
It's a good idea to put the Macrium image on a hard drive rather than a flash drive if at all possible.
Having said that---Macrium backs up on a partition basis. You can back up all partitions in one image file or you could back up each partition in a separate file.
The image file will be roughly half the size of the occupied space on a partition. That is--if C is 500 gb, with 130 occupied, the image will be somewhere not far from 65 gb, barring an unusual situation. You could drive that number down a bit by using "high compression" rather than the standard "medium", but it rarely makes a big difference.
I'd try to think in terms of putting the image files on a second internal drive or on an external........not a flash drive.
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New #15
To back up only your C: drive partition using Macrium Reflect Free, I would suggest at least 80 GB free on an external USB hard drive (or USB SSD). You might be able to get away with a 64GB USB flash drive, but I would not recommend it. I'm with @ignatzatsonic on this one...I don't recommend USB flash drives for the images.
If you decide to do a clean install of Windows 10 later, show us a screenshot of your disk management first. We can look at your partitions and tell you which partitions you need to delete to do a good clean install.
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of | Tutorials
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Posts : 5,048 Windows 10/11 Pro x64, Various Linux Builds, Networking, Storage, Cybersecurity Specialty.
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New #17
Your SSD is getting pretty full. I would suggest getting a larger (500GB?) SSD before doing the upgrade and at the same time get a 1TB external USB hard drive to use for backup. Install Macrium and create the Macrium Recovery USB flash drive as NavyLCDR mentioned.
Make a backup image of the current drive (all partitions) using Macrium Reflect Free then swap out the drives.
Boot the Macrium rescue flash drive you made when you installed Macrium, and restore the image to the new drive, then use Minitool Partition Wizard to expand the partitions to use the entire drive.
Do one more Macrium backup of the new drive then your ready to do the upgrade to Windows 10. Remember, the upgrade is still free.
This may sound like a lot of work but I think it's worth the effort as right now you only have 20GB free on your existing SSD.
Setup a regular image backup schedule. I Run mine every Friday evening at 8PM, keeping 1 full and 3 differential backup images. Some people take one every night which I think is overkill, some do only full backups. As long as you do it regularly you'll be in good shape if something bad should happen to your system in the future.
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New #18
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New #20
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