Solved Best way to back up a Win 7/Win10 dual boot system

[snoopx]

Hi,
I originally had only Win 7 installed on my SSD and used Macrium reflect (MR) to make periodic back ups in case of needing a reinstall.
Recently I installed Win 10 on the same SSD so I now have the option to boot and run either operating system.
What now is the best way to back up Win 10 on this dual boot system with MR? When I start up MR it automatically loads the GUI as in the attached screen grab offering to back up all 3 partitions, which kind of makes sense if I wanted to backup and restore both Win 7 & 10 at the same time. But what if just Win 10 became corrupted and needed a reinstall?
Can I just back up the Win 10 partition alone for just such a scenario? When I try to do this, MR allows me to uncheck the Win 7 partition, but one of the arrows on the boot partition is greyed out, forcing me to back it up too. Is this the correct way to go for backing up just the Win 10 partition? Or should I go with MR's defaults and back up all 3 partitions containing both Win 7&10 rather than a single partition and operating system? Which boxes should be checked?
Thanks in advance for any advice/info.

 

[MisterEd]

I have a dual-boot of Windows 7 and 10 but in my case they are on different drives. I backup each disk separately using a backup program on Windows 10.

Have you created the rescue media on a flash drive. If you need to restore the disk you can boot from the flash drive. That way it doesn't make any difference if either of the operating systems are unbootable,

 

[dg1261]

Can I just back up the Win 10 partition alone for just such a scenario? When I try to do this, MR allows me to uncheck the Win 7 partition, but one of the arrows on the boot partition is greyed out, forcing me to back it up too. Is this the correct way to go for backing up just the Win 10 partition?

The System Reserved partition is so small that there is no harm in backing it up with your Win 10 partition.

But yes, you can backup any individual partition, if desired. To backup just the Win 10 partition by itself, untick the selection box at the far left end of the "MBR Disk 2" schematic, then click on the "Windows 10" partition. The "Actions" drop-down menu will move to that partition, and from the drop-down you can select "Image this partition only".

If your backup image includes multiple partitions, at restore time you can choose to restore any or all partitions, as desired. For instance, if you have a three-partition image and Win 10 becomes corrupted, you can choose to restore just the Win 10 partition from that image.

Note that by definition a complete backup would include all three partitions, but they need not be at the same time nor in a single image. For example, say you have a three-partition image and several months later reimage only the third partition. If you were to restore to a new, larger hard drive, you would restore partitions 1 & 2 from the first image, and partition 3 from the later image.

Also, just as a tangential comment, make sure you go into Win 10 and disable "Fast Startup". That's a sort of hybrid hibernation feature that can play havoc with multi-boot systems.


(BTW, in case it helps, I made a video awhile back to illustrate how to use Macrium with multi-boot systems.)

 

[snoopx]

Have you created the rescue media on a flash drive. If you need to restore the disk you can boot from the flash drive. That way it doesn't make any difference if either of the operating systems are unbootable,

Thanks. Yes, I have a rescue media disk created on DVD. Tried booting from it the other day and it seems to load the familiar MR GUI so should be usuable by me if the need arises.

- - - Updated - - -

The System Reserved partition is so small that there is no harm in backing it up with your Win 10 partitio...{snip}

Many thanks for your detailed reply and the link to your great Youtube tutorial.
That's a lot clearer now on my backup options on a dual boot system and the best way to go about it with MR.
PS I initially tried posting this query on the official MR message board but it requires a software key to sign up and only allows paid users of the software to register and post there which it identifies by the key.

 

[jenny5]

st gss maybe does something like this?
Components of Ghost Solution Suite