Internals are fine to store images provided it isn't a partition on your OS drive. This works but if the OS drive dies then you're lost. Externals are obviously ok as well but for USB 3 drives make sure you can install the USB 3 drivers. BTW I use USB 3 externals all the time.
For a basic system image if you select
and point the destination to your external HDD you shouldn't have a problem.
looks easy...what I want to do is back up everything so I can r-image if needed. What happens if I create an image with all three of these checked, see screenshot. Can I restore from them? If I do just "create an image to backup and restore windows" that will be nothing but windows right? NO data just the OS and programs?
You've got it about right.
You could image the data partition, but imaging is not how I would back up my data. Why complicate getting at your data backup by using an image rather than an ordinary copy?
Using Macrium, if you want to be able to restore Windows, you'd need to make an image of C, nothing more.
You don't have a System Reserved partition, which is fine. If you did, you'd have to image it also.
Your C partition is marked active. If you had a System Reserved partition, it would typically be marked active instead.
You need to image the "Recovery" partition only if you might want to restore it sometime. It's optional. It was put there by the manufacturer so you can "reset to factory condition" if you ever wanted to do that. I'd probably make a one-time image of it SEPARATELY from your C image. Just once. You'd normally make an image of C periodically---maybe once a month.
No harm done if you want instead to image both C and Recovery every time, either separately or in a single file.
Likewise, you don't need to include the Data partition. That's optional.
So, I'd just check C. If you instead clicked the left margin where it says "create an image of the partitions required to backup and restore Windows" I think that would just image C because it looks to me like C is all you need to image---as your Windows installation is configured right now.
You say "What I want to do is backup everything".....well if that's what you mean literally, then you need to check all 3 partitions.
check out this screencast...this is what happens to my image when I try to browse...
This looks like it is all mucked up.
1. If you made a proper image, you should be able to mount the image. Start with opening the image file (e.g. double click). Follow the instructions (check the little checkboxes - see picture below) and the image should open. Else you find it in Computer as a mounted drive from where you can open it.
2. From your first post I gather that you did not define the drive/folder to where you wanted to image. So Macrium just picked the first one in line.
3. You cannot open the images on your wife's PC. You will get some "access denied".
yep all mucked up.....I never got an access denied,even when I check the bottom box. My question is what is in that image file and why can't I get in to it?
Macrium image files look like in the picture below. Can you make a snip of yours in 'Content' format and post that here.
here it is . . .and ignore that vhd, it was nothing and I deleted it.
This is not 'Content' view but they look like Macrium images. Those should be easy to mount and recover data from. What exactly happens when you double click on one of those files.
Btw - on the 166GB file it looks like you imaged the system and the disk/partition with the previous image. You have to be careful what you select (the little checkmarks) and to where you write the images.
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