Solved How do I backup and restore from a second hard drive?

[grimreaper1014]

Hi guys,

I'm not to familiar with the whole backup thing. I have a solid state drive as my primary drive which is the C: drive. I have a 750gb platter hard drive I would like to use as my backup drive with is drive E:. How would I go about making a complete backup of my C: drive to drive E: and then keeping it updated? Also, how would I restore the backup from drive E: to drive C: if a problem was to occur?

Thanks,
Rocky

 

[McLovin]

Do you currently have backup software installed? If so which one?

 

[grimreaper1014]

Do you currently have backup software installed? If so which one?

No I don't. What do you recommend that I should use? I would like something that is short, sweet, and to the point lol. Like I said I have never really done this before so I have no clue. I have tinkered with a few backup programs like Comodo Backup a long time back but no longer have it on this PC. Whatever one you use or most familiar with will be fine. Thanks again for your reply and your help.

 

[imsoadude]

There are free backup software like paragon backup and recovery advanced free, macrium reflect free and easeus todo backup. or paid ones like acronis true image. any of those should do what you want it to, in my opinion easeus todo backup has the easiest interface so you may want to look at that one first

 

[grimreaper1014]

There are free backup software like paragon backup and recovery advanced free, macrium reflect free and easeus todo backup. or paid ones like acronis true image. any of those should do what you want it to, in my opinion easeus todo backup has the easiest interface so you may want to look at that one first

Thanks for your reply I will check into it now. =)

 

[Plexx]

I personally use Paragon. never let me down.
Acronis and EaseUS on the other hand are a different story.

Paragon interface is also easy but make sure you first create a recovery media disk or whatever its called.

 

[McLovin]

No I don't. What do you recommend that I should use? I would like something that is short, sweet, and to the point lol. Like I said I have never really done this before so I have no clue. I have tinkered with a few backup programs like Comodo Backup a long time back but no longer have it on this PC. Whatever one you use or most familiar with will be fine. Thanks again for your reply and your help.

One that I would recommend using now after once I used it myself is Rollback RX. It's great once you install an application and want to go back to the previous state all you have to do is, well Rollback. It does cost though which is the downside but it is surely worth it.

 

[grimreaper1014]

No I don't. What do you recommend that I should use? I would like something that is short, sweet, and to the point lol. Like I said I have never really done this before so I have no clue. I have tinkered with a few backup programs like Comodo Backup a long time back but no longer have it on this PC. Whatever one you use or most familiar with will be fine. Thanks again for your reply and your help.

One that I would recommend using now after once I used it myself is Rollback RX. It's great once you install an application and want to go back to the previous state all you have to do is, well Rollback. It does cost though which is the downside but it is surely worth it.

Yes but Rollback RX is just roll back software. Isn't it best to have a real backup solution, and possibly add a roll back software as well?

Well, guys I tried downloading and installing EaseUs Todo Backup. I had immediate problems as soon as I installed it. I started getting error message, and my computer was so slow I couldn't do anything at all. I tried uninstalling it but the computer was still slow as Moses. I couldn't get it to open anything or respond at all. Even in safe mode it was slow like this. I fired up the task manager to see what was using so much memory but nothing stood out to me. One thing I did notice is it was saying under the task manager under performance that my total memory was only 275Mb. I have 8gb installed. I tried increasing the page file because I kept getting out of memory errors. Still I couldn't get the PC to respond long enough to try to troubleshoot the problem. I am still clueless to exactly what the problem was. I do know that before installing the software my computer ran perfectly fine. I ended up having to completely re-install the OS and all my programs =( I now have everything re-installed, and I am going to give paragon a try. I will report back if I have any problems. Thanks again for all your help guys. I greatly appreciate it.

 

[McLovin]

Yes but Rollback RX is just roll back software. Isn't it best to have a real backup solution, and possibly add a roll back software as well?

True, but once you install something and would like to revert back you can. It can also be good by doing a huge install of everything then taking a snapshot and something big screws up you can revert back

 

[Plexx]

You should be ok with Paragon free.

As for rollback its indeed a nice rollback solution unless you are part of the small group of users who just keep having issues.

on a clean install, booted up the laptop today with Rollback which was installed last night and well... lets just say i couldnt boot back to windows.

restoring snapshot or even baseline did work momentarely until a restart and boot sector was modified somehow.

No backup or defrag solution was present so I still dont know what caused.

needless to say, sticking to good old back and restore method.

 

[McLovin]

You should be ok with Paragon free.

As for rollback its indeed a nice rollback solution unless you are part of the small group of users who just keep having issues.

on a clean install, booted up the laptop today with Rollback which was installed last night and well... lets just say i couldnt boot back to windows.

restoring snapshot or even baseline did work momentarely until a restart and boot sector was modified somehow.

No backup or defrag solution was present so I still dont know what caused.

needless to say, sticking to good old back and restore method.

So in this case it might worth to have both installed?

 

[Plexx]

So in this case it might worth to have both installed?

Both, you mean backup and rollback? nope.

there will be conflicts.
There is a way to do backups but its i believe a rather time consuming method.

You can still do the backup and then uninstall and install Rollback but then when you do restore the backup, at least with paragon, you still need to uninstall Rollback before getting into windows.

 

[Ink]

If you go to "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Backup and Restore"

Backups are generally for data recovery
System Images are for restoring an OS with all settings

Edit: Ignore the typo's, I was in a rush.
Edit 2: Really bad spelling and grammar used. :blush:

 

[grimreaper1014]

I got all the Windows updates downloaded, system drivers, and my software on a clean install of Windows. After getting everything configured how I want it I fired up Paragon for the very first time. I never used this program before. Can someone please tell me if I did this backup correctly? I clicked on backup. I put a check mark under everything beneath the C: drive. I then put a check mark to change the default options as I notices by default the program wanted to split the image into 4gb blocks. I removed the check mark for splitting the image file into 4gb blocks. I pointed to the D: drive which is the location of my second hard drive. Finally, I clicked to proceed with the backup. Does this sound correct? The backup completed very quickly. I hope I did everything correctly. Should I of did a sector by sector backup or whatever its called, or was the way I did it correct?

 

[pcjunklist]

You should do a system image and use windows backup to update your personal files which can be loaded after the image is reloaded.
This can better describe it then I can articulate.
http://windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/windows7/Back-up-your-programs-system-settings-and-files

 

[McLovin]

Both, you mean backup and rollback? nope.

there will be conflicts.
There is a way to do backups but its i believe a rather time consuming method.

You can still do the backup and then uninstall and install Rollback but then when you do restore the backup, at least with paragon, you still need to uninstall Rollback before getting into windows.

I guess, but if you have an idea on what suits you best that is good.

 

[mercurial]

You could do a simple windows backup
Microsoft Backup

or you could use the following programs

• Acronis True Image Home
• Paragon Drive Backup Professional
• Norton Ghost
• O&O DiskImage Professional Edition
• Rollback RX

 

[grimreaper1014]

I decided to roll with the already included Windows Backup. I do have two questions though. If I do a system image to my second internal drive is my PC going to get confused and be trying to boot from it? Is there a program I can burn to a disk with the Windows Backup like the other programs in case the PC is not able to boot on its own?

Thanks again guys!
Rocky

 

[Plexx]

I guess, but if you have an idea on what suits you best that is good.

Considering the issues with RollbackRX just before trial ending, sticking to backup and restore from paragon is the easiest approach.

Takes me about 30 mins to restore the main image.

Sure rolling back would be more ideal but at least i got the backup mirrored in 2 ExHDDs.

 

[McLovin]

Considering the issues with RollbackRX just before trial ending, sticking to backup and restore from paragon is the easiest approach.

Takes me about 30 mins to restore the main image.

Sure rolling back would be more ideal but at least i got the backup mirrored in 2 ExHDDs.

I see what you mean it's more reliable, but let's say you install something that screws the machine up. You then have to get a full blown backup out? wouldn't it be easier to get and rollback a day?