Changing PC

DUTR

I want to back up my PCs, in the past I have used the memeo (by seagate) but it stops after a few months is it worth using the windows back program instead?
Also I take it there is only a need to back up documents and data files not the programs themselves?

Also I want to transfer my desktop setup to a new pc (both windows 7)
Any ideas thoughts tips?

closed

It's useful to do a disk image backup, which includes programs, operating system and data, to allow for a full and quick recovery should your hard disk fail or fail to boot

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3333202

However, if you are replacing the machine completely, you could just copy the data to the other machine via an external hard disk or use this


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-easy-transfer

DUTR

closed wrote: »

It's useful to do a disk image backup, which includes programs, operating system and data, to allow for a full and quick recovery should your hard disk fail or fail to boot

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3333202

However, if you are replacing the machine completely, you could just copy the data to the other machine via an external hard disk or use this


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-easy-transfer

Thanks for the swift reply, so if I have this straight in my head, the 1st back up will be an image of the machine, then subsequent backups are the document folders?
If the hard drive fails, then I can restore to the image and then reload the documents and apart from the programs I'm back to a point before the failure?

esuhl

I keep my data on separate partitions to the OS and program files, and use (an old version of) Acronis TrueImage to take an image of the relevant partitions. I think that the current version of TrueImage probably allows you to back up individual directories rather than whole partitions...

To keep my main laptop backed up, I use FreeFileSync which simply mirrors the contents of the "My Documents" directory on the laptop with a directory in one of the data partitions on my main PC (which subsequently gets backed up by TrueImage).

Personally, I wouldn't bother backing up the OSes. If anything happens to them, I'd probably want to format the drives and re-install cleanly anyway.

The main difference between FreeFileSync (!!!!!!) or Acronis TrueImage (TI) is that !!!!!! is free and just copies files "normally" (i.e. as if you had copied them manually from one drive to another), while TI creates proprietary image files that need to be mounted by TI in order to access the files.

Hope that helps...

closed

a disk image is a backup of everything, you also need to create a boot cd to reinstall it if a hard disk fails or machine won't boot. There are links to free disk imaging programs in my link. If you are planning to throw the old machine away, little point in doing a disk image, but you can do one with windows7 as the functionality is built in

the transfer wizard is to allow you to move to another machine, which is a different issue.

Hammyman

Windows has a built in files and settings transfer wizard.

esuhl

closed wrote: »

a disk image is a backup of everything

Not if you have multiple disks! A disk image is exactly that - an image of a disk (including all partitions); a partition image is an image of a specific partition.

closed

I think anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence would be able to work out that "everything" doesn't include random disks not selected in the backup process, should they have more than one.

esuhl

closed wrote: »

I think anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence would be able to work out that "everything" doesn't include random disks not selected in the backup process, should they have more than one.

Then it's a tautology. A disk image is an image of a disk; a partition image is an image of a partition...