Backing up before 10 upgrade

ignatzatsonic · 16 Aug 2015

It sounds like you are confusing cloning with imaging.

"Cloning" a drive is what you would do if you simply wanted to copy a complete drive onto another drive and then put the other drive in the closet in case the original drive failed or you just wanted to swap back to it. The closet drive would be immediately bootable, but would soon be out of date because your original drive would continue to evolve, getting more data and receiving more Windows updates and new programs. It's normally done when things are working well and you just want to move to a new drive, usually a larger drive.

Imaging is what you would do if you wanted to be able to restore a drive to an earlier state. You'd make an image of certain partitions on say August 20. You'd save the image file to another drive. The image is just a huge file. It isn't bootable. To be useful, you'd "restore" it later on if you had problems with the original drive. This is a "backup" in the proper sense of the word. Cloning isn't. "Restoring" isn't merely copying to a new drive. It's a formal process. Image restoration is usually done when you are in a bad situation--to recover to an earlier time frame.

Decide which you want to do. Most people, if they had Win 7 and wanted to try Win 10, would make an image of Win 7, rather than clone it. But cloning would work in your situation. You better confirm the clone works before you upgrade to 10.

Cloning and imaging can both fail, so be prepared for that.

Stevekir · 16 Aug 2015

Thanks.

CJW · 05 Sep 2015

After reading-up on various forums & reviews, I'm going to stay w/7 for the time being, but I am going to try to make an image soon.

Just as soon as I fix/get rid of this:
CompatTelRunner.exe

john234 · 12 Sep 2015

Hi all
I backed up my HDD with three OSs. multi boot, in it. I made two images with Acronis which I stored in different HDD in the same PC. Went for the W10 upgrade which went and finished smoothly. It was slow in 32 bit and kept crashing, so guess what, I re formatted the HDD and re installed the image of my three OSs. and also deleted the windows updates related to the W10 upgrade in the three OPs.

I'm a happy W7 user.

John

CJW · 26 Mar 2016

Hello everyone :)
Been dealing w/some heart issues the last few months which may lead towards a 5th open-heart surgery if another procedure I'm having doesn't work out.

Thank you for all the previous help. I am going to give Macrium Reflect Free Edition a try this week & image Local Disk C: (OS, programs, documents, videos & pictures on it) & save it to Local Disk D: which is completely empty.
Hope all goes well.

torchwood · 26 Mar 2016

Hi CJW,
Dont forget if your going for the Clean install option NO EXTERNAL HDD's

Roy

mjf · 26 Mar 2016

CJW you have been in the wars - I hope all your health issues get sorted out.

Some comments - When making a system image with Macrium update to the latest version (V6.1.1196). Any update should be prompted when you open Macrium.

To make your image you should only need to select "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows". This is over on the left of the Macrium screen. I assume all your important data (photos etc) are on C: .

What you also need to do is create a restore CD/DVD by selecting the "Create bootable rescue media". It's the top left disc icon. When you burn the rescue disc you should boot from it and be able to locate your system image. This may involve some initial download that Macrium will take care of.