Please.... for your own peace of mind!

[davehc]

! Acronis does magical things!

Bob. Where is the "cop" currently? On your HD, or on media?

First, as you seem a little vague regarding its origin, make sure it is activated, or you might find yourself with unusable images.
It can be run direct from a HD installation, but it is better, and safer, to create a bootable media with the options in the Acronis menu.- USB or CD.

When you have done that, I would suggest to scan Acronis comprehensive pages on how to use it. It is relatively simple. But have a look here for starters:

https://kb.acronis.com/content/37574

Another word. After you have installed Acronis, if you look in the "Services", you will find three items for scheduled backups. These are not needed (unless that is your personal choice) and can both be disabled. When you try to make a backup, in the future, Acronis will complain that the schedule is not running, but, ay t the same time, will fix it for you. The three are also in the startup tab of the task manager, where you can also disable them.

 

[Bob Morgan]

Well, I'm old enough to not get confused with "new math" ... yep, it is a 2TB drive, which, of course, is a 1.81TB drive when marketing fluff is taken into account. My system drive (SSD) has 131 GB in use with 92 GB free space. I have an empty 139 GB drive. I'll try to test by recovering to it.

I'm going to try davehc's instructions and make another backup following the knowledge base article #37574.

 

[Bob Morgan]

! Acronis does magical things!

Bob. Where is the "cop" currently? On your HD, or on media?

First, as you seem a little vague regarding its origin, make sure it is activated, or you might find yourself with unusable images.
It can be run direct from a HD installation, but it is better, and safer, to create a bootable media with the options in the Acronis menu.- USB or CD.

When you have done that, I would suggest to scan Acronis comprehensive pages on how to use it. It is relatively simple. But have a look here for starters:

https://kb.acronis.com/content/37574

Another word. After you have installed Acronis, if you look in the "Services", you will find three items for scheduled backups. These are not needed (unless that is your personal choice) and can both be disabled. When you try to make a backup, in the future, Acronis will complain that the schedule is not running, but, ay t the same time, will fix it for you. The three are also in the startup tab of the task manager, where you can also disable them.

DaveHC: I made the True Image backup on my 2GB external drive. I also cleaned out one of a spare drives that is installed in this Win 7 machine, and tried to restore to (from the Acronis backup it using the utility from the backup DVD. Alas, I got confused because it seemed to allow me to restore only from the original drive on the Win 7 system: Drive C. So, there was a verify option, so I used it to verify the backup. It ran about an hour.

(1) Should I expect the successful verification run sufficient to give me confidence to proceed?

(2) Does the Acronis 2013 backup include everything on Drive C, including installed apps and necessary data? My main data files are on drives D and E (and I'll back them up to another computer before I start the Win 10 update).

(3) Will the Win 10 Pro update mess with any disks other than my system disk (C)?

(4) I have 98.2 GB of free space on the system disk, with 125 in use (its a 223GB SSD). Is that enough for the the Win 10 upgrade?

(5) You asked "Where is the "cop" currently? On your HD, or on media?". Frankly, I don't know what you mean by "cop." If it has to do with the current system, it is on drive "C", a SSD.

Thanks!

 

[Dave Felt]

Don't understand what "image your disk" means. I have Carbonite, will that work?

NO, Carbonite doesn't do a "bare metal" backup. sorry, but not at my home machine !!

 

[Been There]

I have Windows 7 cd's from HP, so if I don't like Windows 10, I can just reinstall 7 using those cds right??
Or do I still have to image my hard drive?

Don't get in trouble...Computer wise that is, SglGrma. I made the mistake of upgrading to WIN 10 in July 2015 on my best HP p6750f desktop with enough spunk and now when I reverted back to WIN 7, I cannot get only about 1/3 of the WIN 7 updates. Microsoft slugged a drop-zone in the reverting back to Seven and mine and your and all the other PC's will not be, do, or work as before.

 

[SglGrma]

Don't get in trouble...Computer wise that is, SglGrma. I made the mistake of upgrading to WIN 10 in July 2015 on my best HP p6750f desktop with enough spunk and now when I reverted back to WIN 7, I cannot get only about 1/3 of the WIN 7 updates. Microsoft slugged a drop-zone in the reverting back to Seven and mine and your and all the other PC's will not be, do, or work as before.

I have not gotten into trouble Been There... no worries.. I did not like windows 8, that was the reason for my posting way back when... I actually Like Windows 10 .... and I knew that there was a drop-zone as you call it after I did my research on whether or not I could revert back... But Thank you so much for the head's up on your experiences ..

 

[Been There]

'

I have not gotten into trouble Been There... no worries.. I did not like windows 8, that was the reason for my posting way back when... I actually Like Windows 10 .... and I knew that there was a drop-zone as you call it after I did my research on whether or not I could revert back... But Thank you so much for the head's up on your experiences ..

I think Microsoft had good intentions on making the "new" Windows OS better, however, they didn't plan it right..causing all sorts of problems. I'm an old "believer" when and if you have a good OS like WIN 7, just kill the problems and upgrade the OS for better. They didn't need a WIN 10. Besides, what was the good reason for a new OS?

I have four computers here...a new Dell Laptop with WIN 10 on it...upgraded from factory installed WIN 7 Home. It seems to be performing ok. My HP desktop with WIN 7 Pro was upgraded to WIN 10 Pro. It has it's quirks but I'm leaving it as is. It's my business computer. The other HP (same model) came with WIN 7 Home, and was upgraded to WIN 10 Home. It's the one that "gave" me the pains, troublesome operations. So, I decided to go a different route than most would do...revert back to WIN 7. That I did not do. Instead, I bought a new "clean" Seagate 2TB hard drive and used my Windows 7 disc to install Seven on the new drive. This way I have Windows 7 Home on the computer, and all is working normal, and if and when Microsoft will pay me to switch to WIN 10, all I have to do is remove the new hard drive and insert the hard drive with WIN 10 on it.
In doing this two hard drive bit, it saves a lot of trouble downloading the updates.

 

[SglGrma]

Making a better OS is more for sign of the times.. I started out with win 3.1 and upgraded with each new OS.. each one a little better than the next with the exception of windows me and Vista.. I did not like the feel of win 8 but i am sure that was a good os as well.. win 10 is more what i am used to and gives me the opportunity to explore the new while keeping a little bit of the old .. so with this os i believe that microsoft listened to their customers for the most part. as far as to why microsoft not just making 7 a bit better and not worrying about a new os, well, that has to go with ... older hardware parts... people want bluetooth / wi-fi / touch screen / etc //etc//etc and if you just made the windows 7 or older os's with more bells and whistles 99% of it will not work with older hardware parts: video / sound / internet cards ... as the manufacturers did not add the new in to older cards.. so ... its basically easier to build from scratch, then to try and patch something that will not be compatible in the end anyways.. hardware has limitations of what it can do depending on how it was put together.. software on the other hand is endless..

So to drill it in a little bit more... in retrospect.. can you take windows 10 and put it on a computer with windows 3.1 without having to upgrade any of the hardware components ? <smiling>

 

[Jorn Johanesson]

I am backing up my computer with my macrium reflect on a 500gb external drive. And I can have at least 4 backups. Windows does not cover that much space. Macrium Reflect compresses the backup.

Macrium Reflect ask you to create a bootable cd/DVD so that you can recover to a Blanck HD if needed. It creates all needed partitions.

 

[dustywoodworker]

I have a Macrium image and I have created a rescue disk, I just hope that I never need to use them.

For my own peace of mind, I maintain a separate backup (flash drive) with the files that I consider critical should my system crash. Now all I need to do is keep that all current. Oh, I also have a handful of flash drives that contain historical backups. I am seriously considering just having a reformatting party.

I'm seeking that "warm, comfortable feeling" and I don't have it yet.

 

[davehc]

I use Acronis. A very old one (2013) still works 100%. I rarely use it from the desktop, but have the usb boot up standalone.

But, dustywood, fwiw. I am a dedicated experimenter - always trying new things.
Just for the hell of it, and to ensure I have removed all the bits and pieces, after playing with new software, I , as a default, reload the laste created image.

 

[Jorn Johanesson]

I have a Macrium image and I have created a rescue disk, I just hope that I never need to use them.

For my own peace of mind, I maintain a separate backup (flash drive) with the files that I consider critical should my system crash. Now all I need to do is keep that all current. Oh, I also have a handful of flash drives that contain historical backups. I am seriously considering just having a reformatting party.

I'm seeking that "warm, comfortable feeling" and I don't have it yet.

If you use the payed Macrium Reflect software, you will be able to make a file and folder backup.

 

[dustywoodworker]

I use Acronis. A very old one (2013) still works 100%. I rarely use it from the desktop, but have the usb boot up standalone.

But, dustywood, fwiw. I am a dedicated experimenter - always trying new things.
Just for the hell of it, and to ensure I have removed all the bits and pieces, after playing with new software, I , as a default, reload the laste created image.

I too like to tinker and that is what has made me so cautious. I have paid the price for experimentation too many times.

What I keep trying to convince myself of is that "recovery" is not as difficult as it once was. At least that is what I am being led to believe. The last time I had to recover was with a Windows 95 installation. I just about swore off computers then. Oh, then there was the initial Windows 7 installation which was a clean install on an old computer. I did that about three times before it completed successfully.

 

[dustywoodworker]

If you use the payed Macrium Reflect software, you will be able to make a file and folder backup.

I have had thoughts of doing that. It is probably the smarter approach. I'm just too frugal.

But WOW. The User's Guide is 550 pages. It seems like I could get myself in really deep

 

[jmccleary50]

I too like to tinker and that is what has made me so cautious. I have paid the price for experimentation too many times.

In my case the active word is "floundering" instead of tinkering. More than once I have managed to destroy a critical boot partition and render a laptop a "brick" as the nerds say
Thank god for a reinstall disk from Dell.
I am an avid believer in system images and depend on them to alleviate some of my most gross stupidity. Lately I have noticed that system images created by windows either 7 or 10 copy over previous editions so that when you attempt to run a recovery from a system image only the latest is offered. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this?

 

[davehc]

Small redirection. As I said I use Acronis, but it costs. But, during my so called "experiments", I tried Eusus todo. Yhat one is really a walk through the park to use.

 

[Bob Morgan]

I have a one-year-old Dell Optiplex 7050. Best desktop I've ever owned. Equipped with Windows 10 Pro, which for the past few months I've not been able to upgrade. Getting the 0xc1900101 error code. About once/month it tries, and fails, to update. The "Quality" updates seem to work ok; however, it continues to fail when it comes to "Feature" updates. This started with 1803, I have three other Windows 10 computers that update OK, and they are all somewhat old. Both Dell Support (which is wonderful) and Microsoft Support (not so wonderful; frequently there is a language barrier) have told me that I need to rebuild my system drive, and install 1803 from scratch. The catch is this: I have some apps from Adobe and Microsoft that I don't have the original installation files. These are critical for what I do. Adobe wants to put me on a very expensive monthly rental plan, and with Microsoft it is less expensive, but still a pain. Can Acronis help in this situation? Any other ideas?

 

[Jorn Johanesson]

have told me that I need to rebuild my system drive, and install 1803 from scratch. The catch is this: I have some apps from Adobe and Microsoft that I don't have the original installation files. These are critical for what I do. Adobe wants to put me on a very expensive monthly rental plan, and with Microsoft it is less expensive, but still a pain. Can Acronis help in this situation? Any other ideas?

Are your system virus free ??????

 

[dustywoodworker]

Are your system virus free ??????

Oops. Are my systems virus free? Do you mean to convey a fact that when the system is rebuilt that I resident virus might survive. With a reformat having been done, I would have thought NO.

I am beginning to LOVE this forum. I learn something new every time I log in.

 

[Bob Morgan]

Are your system virus free ??????

My systems are virus free and all device drivers are up-to-date.