Backing up computer

[PattiChati]

I have never backed up a computer the whole time I've had one which was when they first came out. I got Windows 7 and I have this little flag in the right hand corner that says I have to back up.
Anyway - should I do this and how? How do you know what to backup? Surely it wouldn't be all the programs and can you back it up right on your computer somewhere.
I know nothing about this, so you might have to talk kids language for me.

 

[richc46]

I guess you mean a complete back up
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html

I was not aware of a notice that it had to be done.

 

[boohbah]

if you never do an initial backup when you first use win 7 the the action center has a flagged message as a reminder ,you can turn the reminder off by clicking the flag, then open Action center then on the window for the backup alert click the turn off message about backups link

 

[edilee012]

I guess you mean a complete back up
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html

I was not aware of a notice that it had to be done.

There is an annoying notice but it can be turned off. My step father started the process of setting up a regular incremental backup but did not complete the process and it took us a bit to get the message to go away. This was not the complete PC image backup I am referring to.

You can set up an incremental backup of certain files if you are in need of that type of function...I myself am not since I manually backup the one folder from time to time. I do have a complete PC image which is a great feature once you get your PC set the way you like it with everything installed. It is also a good idea to create a new one from time to time as you install new things since it will save you oodles of time if you need to re-install your OS for any reason. The complete PC image is only useful if you have a second hard drive or other large capacity storage device...my image is well over 100 gigs and needs to be updated so it will be even bigger so as you see it takes a fair amount of space for this backup method but it is worth it.

Someone with better knowledge of the other back up types should be able to give some insight on how they work. Basically they allow you to keep backups of important files like a server machine does where it backs up files every little bit to prevent data loss....some home PC users might need this but I think most won't. There is an option in the action center to turn the message off for that particular notification.

 

[Maxxwire]

How do you know what to backup? Surely it wouldn't be all the programs and can you back it up right on your computer somewhere.

A System Image Backup will include all of the programs on your computer as well as system settings, the 100 MB Win 7 System partition and your factory restore partition as it will show in Backup and Restore. Its fairly quick though I did one earlier this evening with 16.2 GB on the Windows 7 partition to back up and it only took 5 minutes and 22 seconds to complete.

~Maxx~
.

 

[karlsnooks]

I have never backed up a computer the whole time I've had one which was when they first came out. I got Windows 7 and I have this little flag in the right hand corner that says I have to back up.
Anyway - should I do this and how? How do you know what to backup? Surely it wouldn't be all the programs and can you back it up right on your computer somewhere.
I know nothing about this, so you might have to talk kids language for me.

The simplest solution is to perform a system image backup.

WIN | type Backup | Enter |
in the left-hand side click on Create a System Image |
you wil be presented with dialogs asking where do you want the image to be saved and which partitions you want to backup.

The selection dialogs are shown in the tutorial which was specified in a previous reply.

There are only two types of people: Those who make backups and those who wish they had.

If you ever have to restore your computer using a system image that was created, then you can use a System Repair Disc.

A system repair disc has many uses which if all goes well, then you will never need. The chances are you will need it at sometime.

Here is how to create a system repair disc:

​

​

[FONT=&quot]DISC - CREATE A SYSTEM REPAIR DISC[/FONT]​

START | type System Repair | Enter key | Create Disc button

​

​

 

[karlsnooks]

Patti,
I notice that your System Specs are extremely sparse.

If you could fill those out for us, then we will have a better idea of backup specifics such as where to place the backup.

​

HOW TO FILL OUT YOUR SYSTEM SPECS


In the line at the top of www.SevenForums.com you will see UserCP.
That is an abbreviation for User Control Panel.
Click on UserCP.
In the left-hand column, under Your Profile you will see Edit System Spec.
Click on Edit System Spec
You can copy and paste from the output of Speccy, Speccy - System Information - Free Download to fill out much of the info. Be sure to use the Other Info section of your System Specs for such info as your optical drive, your wireless adapter, your speakers, etc.

​

Now there are a couple of other approaches to gathering the info for your system specs.
1) run MSINFO32.EXE
2) download and run SIW SIW | Download

These two alternatives are great but are sometimes overwhelming for a neophyte.

 

[SIW2]

I thought that was quick - then I looked at your specs. Pretty fast machine you have.

Windows system image is actually slow in comparative terms - it's the slowest backup app. I have come across.

Not that backup speed matters all that much ( unless you have an enormous amount of data ) . Reliability and flexibilty are more important imo.

How do you know what to backup? Surely it wouldn't be all the programs and can you back it up right on your computer somewhere.

A System Image Backup will include all of the programs on your computer as well as system settings, the 100 MB Win 7 System partition and your factory restore partition as it will show in Backup and Restore. Its fairly quick though I did one earlier this evening with 16.2 GB on the Windows 7 partition to back up and it only took 5 minutes and 22 seconds to complete.

~Maxx~
.

 

[Maxxwire]

I thought that was quick - then I looked at your specs. Pretty fast machine you have.

Windows system image is actually slow in comparative terms - it's the slowest backup app. I have come across.

I honestly did not know that! Just after I got my Win 7 computer I added a LaCie Hard Disk MAX 2TB eSATA Raid 0 Drive and the 24 GB Windows System Images have always taken around 5 minutes. Other operations proceed at an accelerated rate also when using the LaCie Raid 0 eSata drive which I have benchmarked using HD Tune at 160/90 write and read times...

~Maxx~
.

 

[mjf]

Patti,
I'm not trying to talk down to you I'm assuming backup is new to you.

Coming from no backups I suggest sticking to the Microsoft inbuilt backup capabilities. Only if they cause problems or later would I look at some of the other good software around.
"Backup" has 2 main parts to it.
(1) Backing up your files and folders. Like your documents, photos and so on.
The "BACK UP NOW" button will start this.
The first one you make will take a little longer but then say you run it every couple of days it will pick up the new stuff you've made and add it to the backup - pretty quick.
(2) System Image. Snapshots of your whole disk (partitions to be precise). The snaps shots contains everything: Windows itself, application programs, your personal stuff -- The works.
These are VERY important to have because you can put the image/snapshot back to when everything was running fine.
These couldn't be easier to make. You press a button "CREATE A SYSTEM IMAGE NOW". Make say one every couple of weeks (or a month) - takes 10-20 minutes).
(3) Just one more thing you will need to hit the "Change Settings" button once to set a few things up. There is a little box there that say create a system image along with the backup. I would UNTICK this one or else it will do the the image/snapshot thing along with your more regular personal file backups. I'd use the button on the left of the "backup" page - called "Create a System Image" with the little shield in front of it. You don't need to make these that often.
You can setup a automatic backup schedule but the program may want to backup when it's inconvenient...up to you.


Make your backups to an external USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD). If you don't have one, I suggest you buy one 500GB is enough (Bigger's ok of course). Cost less than $100.

Finally!!!!!! There are tutorials here that take you through the step by step procedures.

 

[Maxxwire]

Make your backups to an external USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD). If you don't have one, I suggest you buy one 500GB is enough (Bigger's ok of course). Cost less than $100.

I have been backing up to external drives for a long time and I have purchased 3 Western Digital Drives including one that had a 1 TB capacity as well as a 1.5 TB Seagate Drive and they all failed within a short period of time. The longest lasting was the $180 1TB WD at 18 months and the record for the shortest amount of time before complete failure was the $150 1.5 TB Seagate.

By the time the 1TB WD Firewire Drive which was the fastest of the bunch @ 38 MBps read time went out I had spent almost $500 on external drives with slow transfer speeds and frequent failures and so I decided to spend slightly more than one of these failed drives cost on the 2TB LaCie eSATA Raid 0 drive. Some owners of the 2TB LaCie say that they have used their Lacie Drives for 4 years with no issues. I have yet to know how long my 2TB LaCie Drive will last, but one thing I know for sure and that it has transfer speeds that are 6X as fast as the USB Drives that I had before they broke down.

~Maxx~
.

 

[mjf]

Make your backups to an external USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD). If you don't have one, I suggest you buy one 500GB is enough (Bigger's ok of course). Cost less than $100.

I have been backing up to external drives for a long time and I have purchased 3 Western Digital Drives including one that had a 1 TB capacity as well as a 1.5 TB Seagate Drive and they all failed within a short period of time. The longest lasting was the $180 1TB WD at 18 months and the record for the shortest amount of time before complete failure was the $150 1.5 TB Seagate.

By the time the 1TB WD Firewire Drive which was the fastest of the bunch @ 38 MBps read time went out I had spent almost $500 on external drives with slow transfer speeds and frequent failures and so I decided to spend slightly more than one of these failed drives cost on the 2TB LaCie eSATA Raid 0 drive. Some owners of the 2TB LaCie say that they have used their Lacie Drives for 4 years with no issues. I have yet to know how long my 2TB LaCie Drive will last, but one thing I know for sure and that it has transfer speeds that are 6X as fast as the USB Drives that I had before they broke down.

~Maxx~
.

I hope your experience is (unfortunate) bad luck. But they are high precision, mass produced, relatively low cost. Feedback from others in a new thread would be interesting.
Call me Mr Paranoid - I have 2 external drives, just for backup) which I keep spun down most of the time.

 

[Maxxwire]

I hope your experience is (unfortunate) bad luck.
Call me Mr Paranoid - I have 2 external drives, just for backup) which I keep spun down most of the time.

Please don't let by experience with these external HDD's worry you. This 2 1/2 year long period of one drive failing after another did teach me to keep 4 copies of my data and 100+ GB of pictures though.

I have another 500 GB Verbatim external USB drive with WD discs that has been running every day for 9 months or so along with a 1 TB WD drive I bought at the same time that is usually inert which only cost $60 less than the 2TB LaCie eSATA Raid 0 drive. The moral of the story for me is that I will not be byuing WD or Seagate HDD's again in the future when I can get 6X faster performance and much better longivity from a 2TB LaCie eSATA drive.

~Maxx~
.

 

[gte024h]

I've been trying to use the Windows 7 backup feature but I keep running into a problem. I have an external 300GB USB hard drive with nothing on it except for the backups. I have a set of files about 80GB (Music Library, Photo Library, Documents, etc) that I want backed up onto it daily. I do not have it set to create a system image. Within a few weeks the drive fills up and Windows stops making backups. Everything I have read says this is normal behavior and I need to "Manage Space" to remove old backups to free up space for new ones. Can anyone else say if this is normal behavior? If so, I would say that Win7 backup is USELESS since the point of automated backups is that they do not need user intervention to run. It should automatically manage space to remove old backup sets as necessary.

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong...

 

[Maxxwire]

gte024h- Welcome to the Windows 7 Forums!

My Windows System Image backups are initially 24 GB and each weekly incremental backup adds very little to that amount. I think that the problem you are having is that even though relatively little information is being added Windows refuses to do the backup because the drive is full. It sounds like you will need to move either the Music or Windows Backup to another external drive to avoid this conflict.

~Maxx~

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
There are 2 different types of backup strategies you should adopt -- "Archive" which is data that doesn't change too much -- for example a lot of data files (spread sheets, Word documents, email folders, photos, music etc etc) and "Backup" for data that DOES change quite frequently.

I would possibly backup the User data stuff that doesn't change a lot to say 50GB BD blue ray discs or to passport type external USB disks -- BUT DON'T USE THESE EVERY DAY. Only use them when re-archiving or extending an archive.

Backing up your OS (image the disk) and other data should be done regularly to DIFFERENT disks -- the chances of TWO failing at the same time are so small as to be discounted.

Decent backup software also allows "incremental backups" - you create a FULL backup and then the next set of backups only backups stuff that has CHANGED.

Say once a week do a full backup and run incremental backups daily.

Data that you don't change very often or even need online 100% copy it to your ARCHIVE system.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[mjf]

Patti,
I'm not trying to talk down to you I'm assuming backup is new to you.

Coming from no backups I suggest sticking to the Microsoft inbuilt backup capabilities. Only if they cause problems or later would I look at some of the other good software around.
"Backup" has 2 main parts to it.
(1) Backing up your files and folders. Like your documents, photos and so on.
The "BACK UP NOW" button will start this.
The first one you make will take a little longer but then say you run it every couple of days it will pick up the new stuff you've made and add it to the backup - pretty quick.
(2) System Image. Snapshots of your whole disk (partitions to be precise). The snaps shots contains everything: Windows itself, application programs, your personal stuff -- The works.
These are VERY important to have because you can put the image/snapshot back to when everything was running fine.
These couldn't be easier to make. You press a button "CREATE A SYSTEM IMAGE NOW". Make say one every couple of weeks (or a month) - takes 10-20 minutes).
(3) Just one more thing you will need to hit the "Change Settings" button once to set a few things up. There is a little box there that say create a system image along with the backup. I would UNTICK this one or else it will do the the image/snapshot thing along with your more regular personal file backups. I'd use the button on the left of the "backup" page - called "Create a System Image" with the little shield in front of it. You don't need to make these that often.
You can setup a automatic backup schedule but the program may want to backup when it's inconvenient...up to you.


Make your backups to an external USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD). If you don't have one, I suggest you buy one 500GB is enough (Bigger's ok of course). Cost less than $100.

Finally!!!!!! There are tutorials here that take you through the step by step procedures.

Repeating this again for you in case it gets lost in the noise.

 

[mborner]

I've been trying to use the Windows 7 backup feature but I keep running into a problem. I have an external 300GB USB hard drive with nothing on it except for the backups. I have a set of files about 80GB (Music Library, Photo Library, Documents, etc) that I want backed up onto it daily. I do not have it set to create a system image. Within a few weeks the drive fills up and Windows stops making backups. Everything I have read says this is normal behavior and I need to "Manage Space" to remove old backups to free up space for new ones. Can anyone else say if this is normal behavior? If so, I would say that Win7 backup is USELESS since the point of automated backups is that they do not need user intervention to run. It should automatically manage space to remove old backup sets as necessary.

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong...

If you're doing daily backups, over a period of time, Windows will create several backup "periods". A regular backup is incremental and generally won't get a whole lot larger unless you continuously add large chunks of data. The first time you back up, Windows does a complete, full backup. After that, your backups become incremental. However, after several incremental backups, Windows will create, yet, another complete, full backup. These "full" backups are called backup "periods". They collect on your HDD in backup ranges by date. It is safe to delete old backup periods, keeping just the latest ones. When Windows manages backup disk space, they are referring to "image" backups, not incremental backups. You can elect to keep just the latest "image" backup and each time an image is made, windows will automatically delete the one it replaces. It will not do such things for backup periods, they must be managed manually.

 

[gte024h]

If you're doing daily backups, over a period of time, Windows will create several backup "periods". A regular backup is incremental and generally won't get a whole lot larger unless you continuously add large chunks of data. The first time you back up, Windows does a complete, full backup. After that, your backups become incremental. However, after several incremental backups, Windows will create, yet, another complete, full backup. These "full" backups are called backup "periods". They collect on your HDD in backup ranges by date. It is safe to delete old backup periods, keeping just the latest ones. When Windows manages backup disk space, they are referring to "image" backups, not incremental backups. You can elect to keep just the latest "image" backup and each time an image is made, windows will automatically delete the one it replaces. It will not do such things for backup periods, they must be managed manually.

Thank you that was the info I was looking for. I noticed the backup periods collecting over time, usually it starts failing on the third backup period. If I have to manually manage these backup periods, then IMO Windows 7 backup is broken. Now I go in search of a smart automated backup solution.

 

[gregrocker]

An alternative method is to place your User folders in a separate data partition or HD: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html

This keeps the OS/Programs partition leaner for an SSD and so the backup image is more compact.

If Win7 becomes irreparable, in 15 minutes you can reimage your OS/Programs partition and your data is waiting and current in its vault.

As for the data backup, I like using a sync program like Windows Live Mesh which keeps the same folder structure while synch'ing your User folders to another HD, other network computers, or using free Sky Drive as a server can make them available worldwide to access securely from anywhere.