Low disk space message for Backup disk.

MPAII said:

Hi Phil,

It's an internal HDD, mounted below my main HDD. I'm using the Windows 7 Backup and Restore function in the control panel.
It's set up to copy everything from my main HDD to it. I selected all options in the setup, and also checked the 'Include system image' box.

Whoa! That's a lot of backup. You'll fill up a spare drive constantly.
Might I make a suggestion? Many of the members here use Macrium Reflect Free. It makes compressed images, can verify them, can run on a schedule, and is more dependable than the W7 Backup feature.

MPAII said:

Hi Simrik,

Thanks for the response. I've downloaded and installed Macrium Reflect.
Could you please give me some instructions on how to use the software? There's a lot of info and options being thrown at me when I open it, I don't know where to start!

Should my first step be to delete everything that win7 backup created on my second HDD and disable win7 backup?

Yes, sure. If that's your only available backup drive, then, yes, you'll want to delete the Windows images and turn that off.

When you first install/open Macrium, it will ask you if you want to make the rescue media. DO THAT! It's a very important step! :) Once it's created. make sure you can boot your system from it. To create the media at another time, select Other Tasks>Create Rescue Media.



Select the disk or partitions you want to image. In your case, you'd want to select the entire disk, all partitions.
Then select Image this disk.





Verify your selected disk/partitions.
Assign a folder on a separate drive for the backups.






Then click on Advanced Options.

Compression = Medium (Recommended)
Copy method = Intelligent Sector Copy
File Size = Automatic
Password (optional)
Auto Verify Image: Yes, so check the box
Comments = information so you can identify what this archive is (i.e. W10 [computername] Full HDD Disk 0)
Shutdown (optional)

Then click Next.





Here you can add a schedule. Perhaps you'd like this backup to be repeated weekly. Click Add Schedule to create your required schedule.
By default, Macrium will keep 12 full backups (and 4 differential backups, but you're not doing incrementals). Change that amount to whatever you like. I would keep at minimum 3, for redundancy. It's possible a backup could become corrupted, so you need more than one.
Click Next.
The Image Summary screen appears. Here you can verify everything you've set up, and make any changes if necessary.
Click Finish.





Check the box to Run this backup now.
If you want to save this configuration to run in the future, click Save backup and schedules as XML Backup Definition File...
Enter a descriptive name for the Backup Definition file.
Click OK and the backup will begin.

You can use your computer while the backup is running.

If you scheduled backups, and your computer is not on when one is supposed to be run, it will run at next boot.
Be sure to check logs occasionally, for any problems.






That's it. It's quite easy, and very reliable.

MPAII said:

Wow thank you so much!
You're so generous to write all that out for me with screenshots and everything. It was very helpful.
It's backing up now

You're very welcome. Once it's finished and verified, make a second, and then a third. You can right-click on your XML definitions file and select RUN NOW.








Yeah, I thought we had a tutorial somewhere in the forums, but I couldn't find it.

If you're satisfied, please go ahead and mark the thread as solved. Cheers! :)

MPAII said:

One problem I did have was that I will only have enough space on the disk for one backup.. :/
Its a 1TB disk, same size as my main. I'm using 528 GB of my main HDD at the moment, and the backup came to 570GB.
Running only 1 backup might be ok, as it's unlikely I will even need it, even more unlikely that it fails. But I do agree that it would be nice to have 3 if I had the space.

Oh yeah. You could look at increasing the compression; also, additional images only require partition C, as the others do not change (but that's not saving much space). You need a min. 2TB backup drive. You always want at least one image existing, while you're creating a new image.