BackUp for HD Replacement

Sooner or later, hopefully much later, my spinning HD will need
replacement with another or a whole new PC.

Is there a way to back up, the current substantial HD apps and data
material, to facilitate this inevitability ?

I don't want to ever be faced with the daunting, if not impossible
task, of reinstalling everything with data.

Probably involve the cloud or other storage device.

Good advice most welcome and thanks.

schreef in bericht
...
Sooner or later, hopefully much later, my spinning HD will need
replacement with another or a whole new PC.

Is there a way to back up, the current substantial HD apps and data
material, to facilitate this inevitability ?

I don't want to ever be faced with the daunting, if not impossible
task, of reinstalling everything with data.

Probably involve the cloud or other storage device.

Good advice most welcome and thanks.



I used Macrium Reflect in the past to clone and recover my Windows 7 hd
successfully.to a new hd.





--


|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os

I used Macrium Reflect in the past to clone and recover my Windows 7 hd
successfully.to a new hd.

I've got reflect 7, but haven't started to do anything.

If possible, I would like more info on what you did.

Where is the clone stored ?

Does the new HD have to be identical to the old ?

Could it be smaller, if large enough to accomodate all the material on
the old ?

Is it possible to use an image ?

What's the difference ?

Any comments greately appreciated.

wrote:
I used Macrium Reflect in the past to clone and recover my Windows 7 hd
successfully.to a new hd.

I've got reflect 7, but haven't started to do anything.

If possible, I would like more info on what you did.

Where is the clone stored ?

Does the new HD have to be identical to the old ?

Could it be smaller, if large enough to accomodate all the material on
the old ?

Is it possible to use an image ?

What's the difference ?

Any comments greately appreciated.

Why not download the manual ?

There's a PDF manual.

http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v...df?src=sidebar

Date: 04 July 2018

Pages: 422

Cloning is on page 9.

And yes, this will be on the final exam.

HTH,
Paul

On Mon, 26 Nov 2018 20:41:38 -0500, Paul
wrote:


http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v...df?src=sidebar

Date: 04 July 2018

Pages: 422

Cloning is on page 9.

And yes, this will be on the final exam.

Thank you, Paul, for the URL. I have downloaded the user guide.
As always, you are a magnificent resource for lesser folk like
me.

Kirk Bubul wrote:
On Mon, 26 Nov 2018 20:41:38 -0500, Paul
wrote:


http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v...df?src=sidebar

Date: 04 July 2018

Pages: 422

Cloning is on page 9.

And yes, this will be on the final exam.

Thank you, Paul, for the URL. I have downloaded the user guide.
As always, you are a magnificent resource for lesser folk like
me.

As manuals go, the manuals for backup software are pretty grim.
(Will cure insomnia.) It's as much a standard joke as a solution :-)

But, you have to start somewhere.

My reason for including the page count, I was hoping for
some sort of reaction. The "average" backup software manual
is 150 pages. That one is 422 pages! A new record.

Once you've got a spare drive, the idea is to *try out*
some stuff. Then ask questions about what you see. All
the "pre-advice" in the world, doesn't do your first
run for you. You still have to take the first step
yourself.

You don't even have to test restore right away. With
your spare drive, try a "backup". Try a "clone".
See what happened.

"Restore" is the more risky of test cases (depending on
how much spare kit you've got). I have to assume a
person who has never done a backup before, has no
spare drives, and to expect such a person to buy
*two* drives, is too much :-)

With the two drives, you do your backup onto one drive,
then do the "restore" test case onto the second drive.
All without messing up the original drive. Then
test that the "restore" drive, boots.

*******

If you squish down the existing OS, or put a minimal
system on your backup drive, the drive can be used
in dual roles. As an emergency boot drive, for when
you need to Google, after your main drive broke. And
also as a container for backups (if the main drive
is merely corrupt and not broken).

Dual-purpose backup drive setup
+-----+----+------------+--------------------------------+
| MBR | SR | Minimal C: | Space for backups goes here |
+-----+----+------------+--------------------------------+

I have one poster, who has been very successful with that,
because when he gets into a jam (perpetual tipover artist),
he pops that into the PC and has something to boot with.
That takes some of the "panic" out of being tipped over.
It isn't always practical, but it's better than sitting
there staring at a black screen. The solution is going
to need work, as the size of hard drives go up, as that
disk will need to be GPT for drives 2.2TB.

Paul

Thanks Paul.

Dumb of me not to have found it.

In message ,
writes:

I used Macrium Reflect in the past to clone and recover my Windows 7 hd
successfully.to a new hd.

I've got reflect 7, but haven't started to do anything.

Make the bootable CD, as a matter of some urgency. (Your images are no
use without it.)

If possible, I would like more info on what you did.

Where is the clone stored ?

By current use of the terms, a clone is a copy to another HD which can
then be switched for the existing (e. g. failing) one, and Windows
(etc.) will boot and run.

Does the new HD have to be identical to the old ?

If larger, and you don't do anything, I _think_ it will appear to be the
same size as the original; a partition manager can then be used to get
at the unused extra space.

Could it be smaller, if large enough to accomodate all the material on
the old ?

I _think_ so, if you do things in Macrium. I've never used it for
cloning, only imaging.

Is it possible to use an image ?

Yes.

What's the difference ?

By current usage of the terms: *cloning* is copying one disc to another,
creating an identical copy of the original disc, which can then be put
into the original PC in place of the original, and Windows won't know
the difference: a *clone* copies one disc drive to another. I _think_ if
done with Macrium, you can do on-the-fly resizing. An *image* is a
backup of several selected partitions - could be a whole drive - but
into a single (admittedly very large) file. That file is not bootable,
and - if you've got a big enough drive - you can image several computers
onto it, and/or store several images of one computer, from several
different dates. If you like, think of an image file as something like a
..zip file on steroids - it contains whole partitions or even drives, not
just files, including boot sectors, partition tables, and so on. (By
default, it's only as large as the _used_ part of the partitions/drives
it's storing, i. e. it doesn't actually image unused space.) In order to
actually _use_ an image, you have to have a drive to "unpack" it onto -
which _can_ be the one it came from (if, for example, you've screwed up
your system royally, or got bad malware); or, it can be a new drive (if
your old one died - after you made the image of course! - or you want to
fit a bigger one [or maybe smaller but an SSD]). You also need something
to boot from in order to unpack the image: this is what the boot CD is
for. The boot CD contains a sort of cut-down Windows, that runs from the
CD, plus the software (Macrium in your case) that knows about the images
it has made and how to unpack them back. (Unpacking _images_ with
Macrium definitely _can_ resize partitions on the fly, though personally
I haven't done that, upwards anyway - I did that afterwards with a
partition manager. [I have done it downwards, when fitting an SSD for a
friend, but that was a single-partition disc,])

Any comments greately appreciated.

Hope the above helps (-:

The terms "image" and "clone" (as well as others like "backup",
"archive", and others) have had different meanings in the past, and may
have in the future; _current_ usage is - clone is copying one physical
drive to another, image is storing a parcelled representation of one or
more partitions/drives into a file (_usually_ on another - often
external - drive), which can be unpacked later.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Have you ever heard about a petition, disagreed with it, but been frustrated
that there's no way you can *show* that you disagree? If so, have a look at
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/232770 - and please pass it on if you
agree, especially to twitter, facebook, gransnet/mumsnet, or any such forum.

No sense being pessimistic. It wouldn't work anyway.
- Penny Mayes, UMRA, 2014-August

wrote

| Is there a way to back up, the current substantial HD apps and data
| material, to facilitate this inevitability ?
|

There are different options. I use two disks that
are mostly redundant. So if one dies suddenly I'm
covered. In combination with that, I have disk image
backups of the OS with software installed. Data is
on separate partitions. I back up data to DVDs,
USB sticks, and old hard disks. Current data like
email gets written to DVD periodically.

If you just have C drive and keep all of your data
on the Windows partition then it's much more
awkward. One bad update and you lose everything.
And it's so big that you'll need another disk in order
to back it up. Backing up Windows as an element of
backup is very wasteful these days because it's so big.
You end up backing up 10-60 GB of system files for
no reason.

I've seen a few cases where friends have hired a
tech support person and that person just sets them
up with Carbonite. You pay a fee, everything gets
backed up to their servers, and if your computer
fails you can get it all back. If you want to trust
them with your data and don't mind paying then
that might be an easy solution. Here's a sample
of what's available:

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp

I've never tried any of them. I don't know why
Carbonite is popular vs other services. I also don't
know anything about specifics. For instance, how
do you get it all back after you put in a new disk?
how does it work if you have to buy a new
computer and just want to download the data
backup? I don't know. My impression is that tech
support people are doing it because it's easy and
relatively secure. It may not cover the case of
neding to get a new computer.

wrote:
Sooner or later, hopefully much later, my spinning HD will need
replacement with another or a whole new PC.

Is there a way to back up, the current substantial HD apps and data
material, to facilitate this inevitability ?

I don't want to ever be faced with the daunting, if not impossible
task, of reinstalling everything with data.

Probably involve the cloud or other storage device.

Good advice most welcome and thanks.

So you're telling us, you've *never* *ever* made a backup ?

Despite the group being filled with dead disk horror stories ?

The first thing you need is a disk.

If this is a desktop, you can add an internal drive to the
PC temporarily, to accept the backup. The backup takes less time,
if done at disk speed.

4TB for $99 (backup drive, not OS drive)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16822235011

4TB for $160 (backup drive or OS drive)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16822179129

If it's a laptop, you might need a USB enclosure disk. These
need a lot of research to get a good one. This has a USB3 connector,
which would be backward compatible with USB2 computer ports (like
on my laptop). USB2 goes 30MB/sec so don't expect miracle backup
rates in such a case.

4TB for $157 (backup drive, might not even be usable outside the casing)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16822510044

*******

Then, a copy of Macrium Reflect Free.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

*******

You also have to decide whether you're a member of the "xcopy crowd"
or the "whole disk backup crowd". People will disagree on what
constitutes a backup. The above is for people who want
a whole disk captured, so that recovery is "mostly seamless",
instead of a mixture of bailing wire and binder twine.

If the source is a 2TB drive with 200GB of files, a 4TB drive will
hold 20 full backups. Or some number of "full+incremental".

The full+incremental method is the most efficient in terms of
storage space, and allows restoration to a "point in time". But
the version of Macrium to get that function, would cost money.

Whereas doing "full" backups, while inefficient, is also do-able
with the free version of Macrium.

You'll also need to make an emergency boot CD, the first time
you open the Macrium program. Using the CD, you can restore C:
when you need to, as the CD is its own WinPE boot OS and is just
enough to do the restore with.

But get yourself a drive to start.

Paul

On 21/11/2018 14:31, wrote:

Good advice most welcome and thanks.

The only good advice for people like you is to outsource such work to
technicians in India because you are so stupid that you don't know or
don't want to learn anything new. You were called SteveGG before and
now you have decided to change your ID because you are so stupid that
you thought we can't spot a chameleon even if they change their colours.

Mit Romney invented the outsource industry and he nearly became the
president of the free world (let alone became a billionaire) had it not
been that Kenyan who stopped him from his tracks. He didn't know that
nobody can beat Kenyans and he foolishly decided to take him on and he lost!



--
With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

God, is he always this obnoxious ?!

Probably voted for Trump, too.

Sheesh !

Only a complete fool would tout for years on a Windows 7 NG,
all that BS about millions using 10 .

Thanks all for great info.

I went with Macrim Reflect to a USB flash drive.

I had been doing backups of critical data to CD,
but wanted something easy to cover the whole PC.

wrote:
Thanks all for great info.

I went with Macrim Reflect to a USB flash drive.

I had been doing backups of critical data to CD,
but wanted something easy to cover the whole PC.

The "easiest" one I tested so far, was a trial version
of Acronis. Where someone really worked at reducing
the number of steps.

The beauty of Macrium Reflect, is the Free version.
That's the part we like the best, the Free part.
Part of the price of free, is you'll be scratching
your head once in a while.

If you lack for amusement, I have some filmstrips
you can look at, for inspiration. The Macrium manual
would do more good. I didn't make these all the same
day, they were made months apart.

https://postimg.cc/image/f664kgrzh/ # Macrium6_Backup

https://postimg.cc/image/soq5qlgrx/ # Clone_Disk

https://postimg.cc/image/458x0anpn/ # Macrium_Restore_CD

Paul