Use not-empty external HDD for image backup?

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Really need advice here. Is it possible to use a external HDD that has some files in it for external backups? My friend has a 1TB drive, which has 800GB free space. She can’t afford another HDD and she uses this one for backing up her files. Can she also use it for image backups? If not many images, will it be possible to create just 1 “Master Image”, that is an image created after a complete reinstall of Windows and required software? And if so, can the image be restored later, even if the system isn’t bootable? Which imaging software can create images to subfolders in external HDDs? Has anyone ever faced this scenario?

Thanks for your help!

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What you describe it pretty much standard operating procedure. Images are just other [large] files once they are made and can be stored on the same backup drive that other data is on.

You will need a recovery CD/DVD or USB key relative to the imaging software you are using in the case of the OS being unbootable. I’m sure all of the most popular imaging programs allow one to specify a target subfolder on an external drive for the image(s).

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F.U.N. downtown, RG and Thomas:

That’s a relief. I’ve heard many Loungers here talk about imaging, and I’d always assumed that they used a dedicated HDD. My backups are on a WD 1TB drive and I use a WD 500GB drive exclusively for images, so I never thought about whether it was possible to use a non-empty drive. I’ll pass along the good news to my friend. I use Macrium Reflect Pro, but my friend needs the free version. Can the free version backup to subfolders as well?

Thanks so much for your replies guys!

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…. I use Macrium Reflect Pro, but my friend needs the free version. Can the free version backup to subfolders as well?…./QUOTE]

I may be wrong but I am pretty sure the free version only backs up and restores partitions (and the whole drive). There are free backups that do howeer. Easues ToDo comes to mind for free, though I too use MR-Pro.

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KritzX,

Not a problem at all I do it all the time with Macrium Reflect. I just create a directory on the device and send the images to that directory. I even have an image directory on my NAS device I use for quick C: only images when I’m trying out new uncertain software.
37650-nas
HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Yes can do that as long as you don’t fill up the 800GB. I use Acronis TI 2014 to backup images to a folder on 1TB drive that has lots of other stuff on it. Rather than a master image I recommend periodic backup images so that in the event of a restore she has a current image. Making a master image is fine if you want to be able to set the machine back to factory settings. Most imaging apps allow you to create a bootable CD or USB drive specifically for the case where the machine does not boot. I’ve restored my machines this way several times. You have several choices such as TI 2014, Macrium Reflect, Shadowprotect.

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I recommend periodic backup images so that in the event of a restore she has a current image. Making a master image is fine if you want to be able to set the machine back to factory settings.

That’s a nice thought. I do the same as well, and I’ll be sure to pass along the idea to her. Thanks!

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KritzX,

Yes Macrium Free will allow you to backup and/or image to a folder. HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Thanks for your replies. I’ve decided to use your suggestion RG and install Macrium Free on my friend’s PC. I would have used EaseUS, but since I have very limited experience with that program, it would be difficult for me to troubleshoot problems on my friend’s PC, if she has any. I’m familiar enough with Macrium that I can talk her through the necessary steps and procedures, on the phone.

Once again, thanks for all the contributions and suggestions.

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Hello, KX.
You wrote : I’m familiar enough with Macrium that I can talk her through the necessary steps and procedures, on the phone.
Can I suggest TeamViewer to help you both ? Talking on the phone to help is good but doing the clicks yourself is much better. I use it almost daily to help friends as you want to do. There is a free version for non-commercial users, it will connect her machine to show on yours.
Have at it. Jean.

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KritzX,

You might want to givethis thread a read. HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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KritzX,

You might want to givethis thread a read. HTH :cheers:

NICE! :clapping:

That seems like a marvellous idea RG! However, I have a few concerns:

Plug in the USB hard drive and use the partition manager of your choice and delete all partitions.

The HDD I’m going to set up for my friend already has files and folders! Won’t this step just delete all of them? :o:

Also, the HDD will still function as normal after your procedure right? I mean it can still be detected by Explorer and used for my friend’s document and picture backups right? And also it can be used to create Macrium images from within Windows itself right? Or should she always have to boot to WinPE and do her image backups there?

Questions, questions.

TIA!

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KritzX,

In your case what you want to to is use your partitioning software of choice (I like EaseUS Partition Master Free) to create free space at the beginning of the drive (the software will move all the files) for the Boot partition. Once this is done you can then use that free space to create a new bootable active partition as mentioned in the post. When using the drive in the future it will just show up in Explorer as 2 drives (The Macrium Boot drive and the Files (existing data backups) drive. HTH :cheers:
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You’ll note that The Macrium Win PE environment only uses about 160mb. However, I set up the partition to 4GB JIC. Also note it should be a Fat32 partition! The other partition (data) can be NTFS no problem.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Okay, I get it now. Thanks for your help RG. I’ll only be setting up my friend’s system next weekend though, so I won’t be able to do anything else for now. I’ll update this thread as soon as I’m done with the process and let you know how it goes.

Once again, thank you very much for your invaluable suggestions, RG.

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Let me get my 2-cents in here.

First, I would answer about mixing Backup Folders with other data in the phrase “it depends”.

If you have a hard drive which frequently changes data, syncs folders or files, or is connected to a PC while that PC is online, security and data integrity questions could arise. If anything went wrong (including a virus, or syncing issues, or even a power event) I would not want my primary backup drive to get involved in the disaster. Kinda makes Backup and Disaster Recovery seem unreliable, doesn’t it?

Second, Macrium Reflect Free allows the creation of a WinPE recovery disk, which I do recommend. Like the inside-Windows program, this version of the Recovery Disk will allow Exploring of archives and Restoration of Files and Folders without redoing the whole disk or partition from whence they came. This is much more capable than the Linux-based Macrium Reflect Rescue Environment, which is the standard default. Downloading the massive MS WAIK is a one-time deal, until MS updates WAIK itself. Building the WinPE environment is handled automatically inside the desktop Macrium Reflect program, and happens reasonably fast. A new WinPE disk shoulld be made after any Reflect Program Update, and these are frequent.

So what would I do?

You’d be amazed how fast a 1TB or even 2TB drive can fill with Reflect Backup Archives. Depending on your system configuration, you may be backing up over 60GB of Windows System and Programs each time. This makes (with reasonable compression) backup archives of 30MB to 40MB in my experience (64-bits Windows 7 Home Premium). So I get on 1TB about two years or less of monthly backups. Less time-span with more frequent backup runs, even if incrementals are used. Probably not much room in there for data backups to share the drive.

I would use a separate drive for Data Backups, especially if using Windows 8 with its File History options. It only makes sense, for reasons I’ve posted here.

I do have a second backup drive for System Backups which mirrors the first one. That’s called redundancy, and it’s a good idea if you really value your System Backups. Data Backups are less sensitive, as they are always changing. Only some critical data folders or files usually require the “1-2-3” Disaster Recovery safeguards. (One local backup, one copy, and one remotely-located copy, all kept current.)

Hope this helps with the decision making and planning.

-- rc primak

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My preference is to use the Microsoft imaging software periodically so that I have a reasonably current image. It automatically goes in a folder called “windows system image”, under which it creates a folder of the machine name to put the image. This means that you can have multiple pc images on the one backup drive and/or have other folders backed up separately. I recommend to friends that they keep a regular image as a recovery plan in case of drive failure or other calamity. Most people baulk at doing lengthy backups on a daily basis so I suggest an image every so often with a secondary quick backup method to sync libraries with something like SyncBack or Microsofts’s SyncToy. getting people to keep their files in libraries is the difficult part as some like to have Desktop folders. Creating paired folders in SyncToy is easy and a number of Jobs can be setup to quickly sync a library that has been used that day prior to shutdown.
I have had a couple if instances where Crypto Locker has appeared and a System Repair CD followed by an image restore has saved the day with SyncToy taking care of bringing
the libraries up to date. With Outlook putting .pst files in the documents library, email is taken care of as well. I have had one case of the user leaving the backup drive in the PC and unfortunately for that user, Crypto Locker took care of the SyncToy backup AND the mapped server drives! The fall back was to the last image! The image was not to Crypto Locker’s liking but no doubt it will come eventually. You cannot plan around laziness, but lessons can be a good teacher.

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Oh! I’ll admit, I’m lazy – thanks all for the posts. i’m surprised the Windows imaging backup worked so well! My version of Windows doesn’t have it – but I do have the upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate, so I may be dropping Macrium for the new Windows backup!:D

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I may be dropping Macrium for the new Windows backup!:D

JC,

IMHO Not something I’d recommend. :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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I may be dropping Macrium for the new Windows backup!

I really wouldn’t do that. Use both together if you want, but don’t depend entirely on Windows Backup.

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I agree with everything Bob says with the exception of what will fit on a drive. You can actually get quite a few images on a drive assuming you don’t have large volumes of Movies and/or music files.
37687-imgcnts
HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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I use Macrium too, and in my case I use a plug in module drive and remove it right after backup. I don’t like making incremental back up images, even though there is nothing wrong with that – I just don’t like leaving my drive in the PC. So I use the regular Windows backup to back up files incrementally to the other drive already in my PC.

Images are compressed in case that may not be understood by new users, so they don’t really take up too much room. I’ve done full recovery this way, so I know it works well. To me having that pristine older image is more important than keeping a new incremental image handy. I’ve found with earlier versions of Windows – like Vista – that getting the Microsoft updates again actually fixes problems with dodgy past updates; as MS fudges the MSI and some of the hot fixes, and this eliminates that from the past. I found my computer ran better than before, by a long shot!! It also seems to fix some problems with applications – especially the security utilities. Go figure! :rolleyes:

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Still, the OP wonders about the wisdom of mixing backup with non-backup content on a single external USB HDD. I personally would recomend against this.

-- rc primak

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Still, the OP wonders about the wisdom of mixing backup with non-backup content on a single external USB HDD. I personally would recommend against this.

If your data is critical, then yes; maybe it is better if the write head only passes over one partition used for images only. That way if the external drive crashes, it is more likely to happen on the partition used more frequently for regular files; and of course it is always better if it is ONLY used for backups, in that scenario.

In my case, I don’t have any critical mission files, and I still have my dedicated 2nd internal drive for regular incremental backups. That is all I use the internal drive for. For those worried about Cryptolocker, this wouldn’t be advisable either. The only other files I have on my external drive are export folders for my favorites from several browsers, so they are not written very often. Those are actually my only files that could be close to being called “critical”, as I do a lot of research – so I have them backed up all over the place! I usually use three types of media for backups of anything I deem critical, and three locations and types of storage for each.

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I would recommend creating a separate dedicated partition on the external HDD (I call mine drive I: Image Bkup) which only contains backup images and is big enough to hold at least three of them, but not forgetting that the Macrium image will be compressed to some extent, and will not include the paging or hibernate files. For example, my drive C has 45GB in use, but the latest Macrium image of it is only 15 GB. I do weekly image backups (deleting the oldest one first) so if I have a need to restore then my restored drive will be only a week old at worst. Macrium free will ask you early in the piece if you want to create a recovery disk – do so, and then test that you can restart/recover your system from it. You can also mount an image backup to look like a disk drive in Windows Explorer, with its own drive letter, and then you can copy or recover individual files if you need to. For what it’s worth, I have needed to restore from an image backup a few times, booting from the recovery disk, and it has always worked flawlessly.

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You cannot plan around laziness, but lessons can be a good teacher. (Gannet)

How very true!

-- rc primak

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IMHO Not something I’d recommend.

Agreed.

Zig

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Thanks for all those ideas guys.

@handcuff36: I’d have used TeamViewer, but my friend really isn’t familiar with the program, so I ended up having to do it on the phone. Wasn’t that much of a pain. Thanks for the suggestion, anyway.

To the others: I noticed some of you experienced concerns about space on the HDD, but my idea was to just create a single Master image on the HDD, so that if the time ever comes to reinstall, she wouldn’t have to set up her programs, download 100s of updates and so on. She’d just have a single image. So I really don’t think a single image will eat up that much space. She doesn’t have any movies on the HD and she uses DVDs for her music backups. Also, the HD is only used for monthly data backups.

So, anyways, per your suggestions, I reformatted and reinstalled Windows on her PC and had her system set up the way she wanted. I had her install all pending updates and her preferred software. That took about a day. I then guided her over the phone on installing Macrium and making an image backup, and I have to say now, that ALL IS WELL! Everything went off with nary a hiccup, and her system’s running better than ever. Thanks to all for your help! You guys are the best!

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It’s just that Windows Backup doesn’t offer as many options as Macrium Reflect. Although he was writing about Acronis True Image, Fred Langa has not fully endorsed the built-in Windows Backup for System Backups. He isn’t fully against the Windows tools, but he seems to favor third-party programs.

-- rc primak

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Although he was writing about Acronis True Image, Fred Langa has not fully endorsed the built-in Windows Backup for System Backups. He isn’t fully against the Windows tools, but he seems to favor third-party programs.

Where/when?

“There are many third-party backup tools available, but I recommend trying Windows’ built-in offerings first. After all, you’ve already paid for them!”
By Fred Langa on January 16, 2014 in Top Story

Bruce

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Not only do the Windows Backup tools have fewer options than do the third-party programs, the rules for determining just what goes on “behind closed doors” are arcane and not fully divulged. For instance:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-backup-criterias-used-to-perform-a-full/322a7f91-afb8-46e6-a838-dd8f4be5849a

For further discussion, see:
http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/24305-windows-backup-vs-3rd-party-backup-solution.html

Zig

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Not only do the Windows Backup tools have fewer options than do the third-party programs, the rules for determining just what goes on “behind closed doors” are arcane and not fully divulged. For instance:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-backup-criterias-used-to-perform-a-full/322a7f91-afb8-46e6-a838-dd8f4be5849a

For further discussion, see:
http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/24305-windows-backup-vs-3rd-party-backup-solution.html

Zig

This is why many authors, including Windows Secrets contributors Woody Leonhard and Fred Langa (among others), have recommending that if Windows Backup just doesn’t do it for you, third-party options are out there. Easeus ToDo gets praised almost as often as Acronis True Image Home in Windows Secrets columns by various contributors.

I think the bottom line here is, the only backup tool which never works is the one you do not use before disaster strikes.

-- rc primak

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Acronis True Image Home is recommended by Fred Langa. He does say to try the built-in Windows Backup first, but has also said he approves of Acronis.

So — no joke — one possible answer to your question, Nick, is to upgrade to Win7. It has built-in tools that can handle all the backing up you need to do, and it walks you through the entire process.

Of course, you can accomplish the same tasks in any version of Windows using third-party tools such as Acronis True Image (more info), Norton Ghost (more info), and my personal favorite for non-Win7 systems, Terabyte Unlimited’s geeky-but-powerful BootItNG (more info). All three programs make disk images and bootable recovery discs that can be used to restore an image even to a raw, unformatted drive.

You might wonder about the practicality of storing images of today’s huge hard drives. Fortunately, all the best imaging tools — including Win7′s — are smart enough not to copy empty space. The programs merely note blank areas, so they can be recreated without actually storing the emptiness.

http://windowssecrets.com/langalist-plus/using-windows-built-in-disk-imaging-utility/

This is not a full endorsement of the Windows 7 built-in backup tools. But Fred does not say he prefers the third-party tools either. He remains about as neutral as he ever is.

Granted, I am citing a 2009 LangaList Plus article, whereas BruceR was citing a 2014 Top Story in Windows Secrets Newsletter.

So it is possible Fred has changed his opinions over the years.

-- rc primak

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http://windowssecrets.com/langalist-plus/using-windows-built-in-disk-imaging-utility/

This is not a full endorsement of the Windows 7 built-in backup tools. But Fred does not say he prefers the third-party tools either. He remains about as neutral as he ever is.

Granted, I am citing a 2009 LangaList Plus article, whereas BruceR was citing a 2014 Top Story in Windows Secrets Newsletter.

So it is possible Fred has changed his opinions over the years.

Even in that five year old article, does “I don’t mean to gush, but as a backup fanatic who’s had to cobble together elaborate, Rube Goldberg–inspired backup/image/repair boot-disc systems over the years, having all this stuff built into the basic operating system is wonderful. It’s one of my favorite parts of Win7.” really sound like your “not fully endorsed”?

Or your “neutral”? He only recommended third-party backup applications for XP and Vista versions which didn’t have backup built in.

Bruce

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I have Vista Ultimate 64bit and it has everything but the imaging capability for backup. I’ve tested it several times, because I experiment with cable systems, and it hasn’t let me down yet. I really like it, but I also image with Macrium. To each his own I always say!

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