Questions about Windows 7 backup

[joe99]

Hi folks

My first post here...

On my desktop machine (running Windows XP) I have been doing monthly full backups to 6 external hard drives used in rotation.

Can I use this same scheme on my laptop running Windows7?

If I delete all files from an external drive, connect it to my computer and click on "Backup now", will the fact that the drive is empty force Windows7 to do a full backup?

joe99

 

[whs]

In Windows7 you can either backup your files or image your system. If you type backup into Start/search, it will show you how to get to backup an restore. As for the external disk, you need not wipe it clean. There must be only enough space to hold the backup or image. I suggest you create a folder on the external drive to which you backup or image.

 

[joe99]

Thanks whs for the reply.

I have managed to create a backup to an external disk.

Are you suggesting that if I now create a new folder on my external disk and direct my backup there, I will achieve my aim of forcing a full backup on the basis that the new folder will contain no trace of any earlier backup on which the system could otherwise choose to use as the foundation for an incremental backup?

If this does work, I would actually prefer to use separate external drives to hold my regular monthly full backups (no incrementals)

The idea being that if any one external drive fails, all my other backups remain valid.

thanks

joe99

 

[whs]

If you create a new folder and make a new definition directing it to that folder, you should get a new full image. But to tell you the truth, I do not use Windows imaging because it is complex, unreliable, you cannot mount the images (at least not without jumping thru 7 hoops), it is slow and I do not like it all together.
I use this program - it is fast, reliable, makes full images, I can schedule and direct the images as I like (e.g. if I want to direct images to 3 different drives at 3 different times, that takes 2 minutes to define), etc. Have a look, maybe you like it. Here is some more info on the scheduling part - dead simple.

 

[seekermeister]

Macrium seems to be good, but if you are concerned enough about backups to have 6 different harddrives dedicated for this purpose, you can also afford to purchase Acronis True Image . It is the best backup software available.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/

 

[whs]

seekermeister, I agree with you that Acronis is an excellent product. It offers a lot of functions beyond what you can get with free Macrium. But it is also more complex to use. If you only want to schedule full images (no differentials, no clones, etc), then I prefer to recommend free Macrium, because it is so dead simple.

 

[seekermeister]

The only complexity that I see is that TI offers more options than most other programs. I hadn't bothered to setup a schedule before, because I tend to prefer to do thing myself, but just to check, I just scheduled a full monthly backup, and I see no problem with it doing what you want. I could have chosen other time cycles or backup types, as well as a lot of other options, but I doubt that Macrium can do anything that TI can't.