Choosing between a file backup and a image backup...

Try Paragon backup 2011 (freeware).

You can create the base image of your system on an external drive & following that you can do differential backups on a daily or weekly basis if necessary which are very small, only a few Mb's on a daily basis, taking into account any editing you may do on documents, images etc. A good all round backup application!

Yes. That's one of the advantages of free Paragon over free Macrium. I didn't suggest that because I had more problems with the Paragon recovery disk than i did with Macrium but that may just have been my set-up. Quite frankly neither Linux disk was ideal at finding my backup drives but others have had no problems. You just need to try it for yourself. Eventually I upgraded to Macrium Pro and the WinPE recovery disk works just fine.

kado
Luckily for all the years I have used Macrium & Paragon freeware backup I have never at any time had problems with the Linux recovery disks. Both apps have performed admirably.

ignatzatsonic said:

Any Macrium user should test the recovery disk to assure the PC will boot from it and to confirm that the image file can be located and recognized. Boot from the disk and go several steps into the restoration procedure.

It isn't a foregone conclusion that the boot disk will work.

The last time I made a Macrium boot disk, my PC would not boot from it. I had to use one of the other two available modes of making the disk (debug mode?) before I could in fact boot from it and locate the image file.

I couldn't agree more. Any recovery disk should be tested in the environment it is going to be used.