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#1250
I should point out that most people here, including me, do not recommend using incremental and differential imaging (although, of the two, differential backups are preferable). As long as one keeps only the OS and programs on the C: drive or partition and data on other drives or partitions, full backup images will be small enough to allow keeping several of them on hand. Also, one doesn't need to image just the OS and programs as often. I make my images only once a week and just before making a change, such as installing a new program or making major setting changes, then keep only the latest few (and the first image I made after setting up the computer). If one of the incremental or differential files gets lost or corrupted, recovery will fail.
Image compression of the C: drive is a bit confusing. While Macrium Reflect appears to compress the image quite a bit, it only appears to be that much because it doesn't image files that are automatically generated by the OS, such as the hyberfil.sys file. In my case, that file is huge (24GB since I have 32GB of RAM), so the compression appears to be far more than it really is.
Imaging is highly inefficient and much too slow for backing up all but the tiniest amount of data (the main reason one should keep the OS and programs separate from data). A folder/file syncing program, such as FreeFileSync or SyncToy, is (after the initial backup) much faster and takes up less room. It normally takes me only a few minutes to make a backup using FreeFileSync, depending how much data I've added or changed since the last backup, so I can easily make two backups my data once or more a day. A folder/file syncing program, when used in mirror mode, will compare the source drive or partition (the one being backed up) to the destination drive or partition (the backup), the copy files to the destination drive, or delete them, so that the destination drive is essentially a clone of the source drive.
Thanks ignatzatsonic. That sounds fairly straightforward, I will give it a go.I think you'll be OK if---and only if---the new smaller partition is still at least as large as the occupied space was on the earlier, larger partition.
Example:
C is originally 500 GB, with 200 occupied. You make an image of it.
You then reduce C to 230 GB. You can still restore that original image. If you reduce C to 180, you couldn't.
ya you are absolutly right .aomei in their website pointed out there is not much compressable effect on files like videos when compared to system files so there is no point to image all data which will consume lot of time.also our actual goal of imaging is to preserve and recover windows so as we no need to buy windows again.
Regarding AOMEI - I think that is work in progress.
For me the backupper worked well on a 64bit system but on a 32bit system I had all kinds of problems. Also with their other product - the One Key Recovery - that is a nice product which worked beautifully in W8.1 (see post #25 here) but not in W7. There it wrote the image but did not create the BCD entry. Probably because the bootmgr was on the C partition and not in an independent system partition. But that is not an uncommon configuration.
Plus my general complaint about AOMEI is their impossible user interface. A tiny window with black writing on dark blue background and messages with faint yellow writing on fair blue background is not acceptable.
I have written a letter to them about all those problems. We'll see what the answer is. The AOMEI products in their current stage I would not recommend.
I did mentions that differentials are preferred over incremental. I've found that weekly images are normally plenty for me; if anything, they are probably overkill and once a month would be enough but I need to have an established habit to ensure it does get done (stupid ADHD). My OS programs stay pretty stable unless I remove or add a program or make a major settings change, in which case I just make an image before making the changes. Even as "huge" as my C: drive is (64GB used out of 119GB available), it takes only ten minutes to make an image and verify it.
Ironically, I had to restore my latest image just a short while ago. One thing that is nice about Macrium Reflect Pro is I didn't have to dig out a restore USB stick or CD (I do have both just in case). I just opened up MR, set it to restore my latest image, and walked away. MR automatically shut down the computer, booted up Win PE, did the restore, shut down Win PE, then rebooted the computer. The entire process took no more than ten or fifteen minutes, if that (I didn't bother to time it; I just "busied myself elsewhere").
I used aomei one key recovery it is very good just press "a" during bootup to recover. we can also make entry for recover along with windows.But one drawback is it takes lots of space for creating recovery partition within internal hdd.it takes about 14gigs for freshly installed windows home basic 32bit .But it is speed hussle free recovery.