Solved should I disconnect from web while restoring from a system image ?

[boblite]

Greetings:

I backed up partitions CDEFG and also a system image, to an external USB drive.

I now want to restore the system image and partitions CDEFG to a new hard drive.

Can I remain connected to the internet while doing this restore, or should I disconnect during the restore ?

Will much appreciate advice.

P.S. Are the partitions included in the system image ? Or are they separate entities ?

 

[fireberd]

I use Macrium Reflect to backup (make full disc images) and have restored while connected and no problems. However, you are not "on line" while doing the restore, just "connected" via the Ethernet or possible wireless connection.

 

[mjf]

I don't disconnect my internet connections. They only matter once the system image restore completes and you reboot. Even then I'd only disconnect if I wanted to change the Windows update settings before an unwanted update download.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I use a paid version of Macrium Reflect Free for imaging (and the occasional clone) and I've never disconnected from the internet when restoring an image. With Macrium Reflect, both the paid and free versions allow you to choose to include one or more partitions in an image. I only have the System Reserved and C: partitions on the boot drive of my desktop machine and I include both of them in my images. On my single drive notebooks, I have four partitions on the drive: System Reserved, C:, Data, and the factory recovery partitions. I only image the System Reserved and C: partitions (I use another method for backing up the Data partition) except for the first image I made; I also included the factory recovery partition in that one.

 

[Layback Bear]

Lady, do you have to pay for upgrades once a year using Macrium Reflect?

Jack

 

[boblite]

Hi Fireberd, mjf, Lady Fitzgerald:

Many thanks for your responses. Thanks for making clear that disconnecting from the web is not necessary.

As it stands I was impatient and went ahead with the restore with the puter physically disconnected from the web.. no ethernet wire, no wireless. There were no obvious problems.

I used the native Windows 7 backup utility, to create an image backup file and also specified I wanted backups of drives DEFG.

Two things may be worthy of note.

First, that while I specified backups of the image and of partitions DEFG, the restore did not restore the DEFG partitions properly. It only restored the C: partition, and part of the D partition, and did not restore any part of E, F, or G.

Second, that while I was restoring from a 1 terabyte USB drive, the restore software required a second USB drive with lots of space to write and read temporary files, which fortunately I had on hand.

Many thanks for taking time to reply to my question. Must run.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Lady, do you have to pay for upgrades once a year using Macrium Reflect?

Jack

Yes and no. If I want the latest and greatest version, then yes, I have to pay for the upgrade. However, If I'm satisfied with the version I'm currently using, then no, I can continue to use it for as long as I like, I just won't receive anymore updates. Since updates for MR are not security related, they are not essential, especially since, after a year with the same version, any bugs will have been worked out.

Of course, the free version is just that; free. You can upgrade to the next free version every year for free; you just won't have as many features as the paid version. Most people do just fine with the free version.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I used the native Windows 7 backup utility, to create an image file and also specified I wanted backups of drives DEFG.

Two things may be worthy of note.

First, that while I specified backups of the image and of partitions DEFG, the restore did not restore the DEFG partitions properly. It only restored the C: partition, and part of the D partition, and did not restore any part of E, F, or G.

Second, that while I was restoring from a 1 terabyte USB drive, the restore software required a second USB drive with lots of space to write and read temporary files.

Many thanks for taking time to reply to my question. Must run.

I've seen far more complaints about Windows native backup utility than I have for Macrium Reflect. Even the free version is far superior to Windows backup and will easily handle multiple partitions and drives.

However, I do not recommend using imaging for backing up data. Imaging is essential for backing up System files (i.e. OS and programs) but it is too time consuming and consumes too much space. Data is best backed up using a folder/file syncing program, such as FreeFileSync (the one I use) or SyncToy (another one I often see recommended). Folder/file syncing programs, when set to Mirror mode (not the same as RAID 1, btw), will compare your source drive (the drive in your computer) to your backup drive with your destination drive (your backup drive). Any folders and files on the source drive that are not on the destination drive will be copied from the source drive to the destination drives. Any files on the destination drive that are not on the source drive will be deleted from the destination drive. This will essentially give you a clone of the source drive on the destination drive without having to write all the data on the source drive to the destination drive.

Many folder/file syncing programs also have a feature called versioning (FreeFileSync is one that does). When enabled, it will send files deleted by the folder/file syncing program to a drive or folder you designate. This will protect you from losing accidentally deleted files or one that were deleted to the source file being corrupted. Depending on the setting, it will also save earlier versions of a file.

For a folder/file syncing program to be effective, one must segregate their System files from their data. Data should go on its own drives or partitions and only the OS and programs should be on the C: drive. Also, one should not use multiple data partitions to organize data on a single drive. Using multiple folders within a single partition is far more efficient.

 

[boblite]

Hi Lady Fitzgerald:

Thanks much for these tips. Especially

I do not recommend using imaging for backing up data. Imaging is essential for backing up System files (i.e. OS and programs) but it is too time consuming and consumes too much space. Data is best backed up using a folder/file syncing program, such as FreeFileSync (the one I use)

Currently my data is stored on partitions DEFG... presumably I should create these partitions on the new drive before using FreeFileSync (?) Or does FreeFileSync automatically create partitions ? (I must say I don't like backup programs that force partitions to be at least as large as the pre-existing partitions... greater flexibility would be very useful. )


Regards

Boblite

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Hi Lady Fitzgerald:

Thanks much for these tips. Especially

Currently my data is stored on partitions DEFG... presumably I should create these partitions on the new drive before using FreeFileSync (?) Or does FreeFileSync automatically create partitions ? (I must say I don't like backup programs that force partitions to be at least as large as the pre-existing partitions... greater flexibility would be very useful. )


Regards

Boblite

Why are you using four partitions for your data on one drive?

 

[RolandJS]

"...I do not recommend using imaging for backing up data..."
LadyF, I must mildly disagree with you about not making full images of data partitions. My one data partition, commonly called "d drive" by many others, has 282GB of text files, documents, emails, pictures, videos, install ZIPs and EXEs (the largest part of D). I simply make a full image of D right after making a full image of C onto both of the computer's dedicated external 1TB HDs.

 

[boblite]

Why are you using four partitions for your data on one drive?

Historical separation of data from different computers. But have to agree, would make sense to consolidate on a single drive.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

"...I do not recommend using imaging for backing up data..."
LadyF, I must mildly disagree with you about not making full images of data partitions. My one data partition, commonly called "d drive" by many others, has 282GB of text files, documents, emails, pictures, videos, install ZIPs and EXEs (the largest part of D). I simply make a full image of D right after making a full image of C onto both of the computer's dedicated external 1TB HDs.

While one can use full imaging for backing up data, it not the most efficient method of backing up data since one is backing up the same data over and over. Every time you image that 282GB, you have to write the entire volume into the image (even if the image is compressed), even if only a small percentage of that volume has changed, even if the change amounts to as little as 1MB or less. To achieve versioning, it would be necessary to keep multiple images, which are probably 112GB or larger each.

When using a folder/file syncing program, only the files and folders that have changed are involved. If only 1MB has changed, that is all that will be written and or deleted, which will be much faster than 282GB. Versioning doesn't take any more time or space than the files being versioning.

The result is a backup drive that is essentially a clone of the original drive that can be used as is whereas an image would need to be restored to a disk or mounted with the program that created the image to retrieve just one data file.

If the EXE files you referred to are actually installed working programs, they should be on the C: drive or, if the C: drive doesn't have enough room for all your programs, they should be installed on a separate drive or on a separate partition on your D: drive so they can be imaged (programs are System files and cannot be backed up by folder/file syncing) and the data can be more efficiently backed up with folder/file syncing.

 

[mjf]

When using a folder/file syncing program, only the files and folders that have changed are involved. If only 1MB has changed, that is all that will be written and or deleted, which will be much faster than 282GB. Versioning doesn't take any more time or space than the files being versioning.
....

The logic's clear but I assume the synced backup drive is always connected? If so then you are more exposed to malware including ransomware infections in the backup.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The logic's clear but I assume the synced backup drive is always connected? If so then you are more exposed to malware including ransomware infections in the backup.

Bad assumption. The backup drive is connected only when updating it.

 

[mjf]

Bad assumption. The backup drive is connected only when updating it.

So during that unconnected stage you obviously don't have backups (eg of some document you were currently working on). In that case differential imaging would be a good contender.

Incremental imaging is also an option but higher risk if one stage fails.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

So during that unconnected stage you obviously don't have backups (eg of some document you were currently working on)...

Seriously? And how would that be different from imaging when you have time between making images? You would still have to run the imaging program to get an image and the time between runs would be also "unprotected". If you are that worried about losing a document while working on it, you should be saving it frequently (preferably as new files so the earlier versions stay intact) and/or running some kind of a mirror in addition to having external backups.

Backup drives should never be connected to a computer except while updating a backup. Otherwise, they are susceptible to being infected if a virus or other malware gets in while a backup drive is connected to the computer (running anti-malware scans before running a backup greatly reduces that danger). It's also essential to have more than one backup drive kept onsite and offsite since even backup drives can fail, be corrupted, get infected, or be lost due to theft, natural disasters, and unnatural disasters.

...In that case differential imaging would be a good contender.

Incremental imaging is also an option but higher risk if one stage fails.

Even with differential image backups, you still have to run the imaging program to update the backup. Differentials have the same risks as incrementals, just not as great, and, with each differential image made, keep getting larger, requiring more space to store and taking longer to make. You would still need to either do a full restoration to recover a single lost file or mount the image using the same software that made the image.

With a folder/file syncing, updating a backup takes far less time and space than imaging, making it far more practical to do more frequent backups. With folder/file syncing, I can quickly retrieve a single file. Unlike with images, I can even do so from a different computer that doesn't have the same backup software. Updating a backup with folder/file syncing can take only a few minutes whereas updating with imaging can take hours.

 

[mjf]

Seriously? And how would that be different from imaging when you have time between making images?

It wouldn't.

Any backup is better than none. What you choose depends on what you are backing up. For large amounts of fairly static data imaging is an option. For smaller more dynamic data (eg. documents) I've never had a problem with Windows inbuilt file/folder backup. For imaging I rely almost exclusively on Macrium.

 

[RolandJS]

LadyF, my install ZIPs and EXEs are just the downloaded ZIPs and EXEs from all over The 'Net. Since I average only two Ds per computer per month -- the changes between those backups are enough to spur me to make said backups