Hey all :)
Have been using W7, where I have Acronis to image my C drive.
What is the recommended way to image the C drive in W10? Is Acronis still a good way to go? Should I use the W10 imaging system - called ICD, I think?
Thanks in advance.
Most of us here prefer Macrium Reflect Free:
Macrium Reflect Free
A few members have dumped Acronis and switched to Macrium Reflect.
Just to give some background on Windows ICD. It stands for "Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer" and it is definitely NOT a tool for making backups.
It is used to deploy a customised configuration of Windows 10 onto hardware - great if you're in the business of making PCs or if you need to deploy a particular 'build' of Windows across your organisation - but not relevant for most users.
Windows 10 does include a tool to create a System Image backup, but I wouldn't bother with that - use Macrium Reflect or one of the other similar tools out there.
I have persevered with that, it's Backup & Restore's 'make a system image'. When it can see an image to restore the restoration is reliable. Where it falls down is that it's very temperamental about recognising an image it can restore. Copying or renaming an image can make it fail to be recognised, for no apparent reason.
From long experience struggling to make it work, I'd say go for Macrium too :)
Thanks guys!
Ok, Macrium Reflect Free it is.
But I have 2 Qs. As a free user, I don't have access to the support forum, so hopefully someone can help me here.
I tried to make a bootable USB drive, but it seems to have failed. All I have is a System Volume Information folder, with two 1KB files in there, and when I restarted the computer with the USB drive in, it booted right into W10, which I am sure it's not supposed to do. The USB drive is currently FAT32 - is that why? If not, any other ideas?
Secondly, I have two options:
1. Clone this disk
2. Image this disk
Which do I use?
Thanks again.
if you already have an Acronis license and you know how to use it by all means continue. I've been using it for many years and it never fail to backup and restore. I use it frequently when I try out new things, especially major windows updates. That said go ahead and try Macrium. Lots of people here use it and like it. I intend to try it as well over the next few weeks. That way you can pick whichever one you like.
Ok, Acronis 2014 does indeed work in W10 - I was told it wouldn't.
So, I will stick with that.
Thanks again for the replies!
Macrium Reflect is usually a good app. I switched from Acorns to Paragon Backup and Recovery myself years ago. I'm using an older version, but it seems to be working just fine with Windows 10.
I used Acronis backup software a while ago but gave up using it in preference to Macrium Reflect Free. Note the Acronis software installed low level disk drivers / filters which were very hard to remove. I prefer imaging to cloning for various reasons provided you have storage space for the images.
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