win 8.1 backup scandal be warned

Robint

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:mad: Hi guys, Ive just gone through the catastrophy of a hard disk crash, out of the blue

daresay you are all going - "oh no another moaner"

But really the experience is like a berievement

But enough of that , I am not here to winge about my own laziness about backs ups, yada yada

Through the good offices of my local IT shop , I was able to get recovered with my OS and most of my data (4 years worth). £150 inc new hd, so a result for me, but of course I lost all me apps. I had backups of the original so its just another week of reinstalling etc

Well thats my story so far and given for my bona fides

My real grouse (aka nuke meltdown) is that in the course of my configs, I have come to realise what an evil ******* M$ is by making it so fiendishly difficult and confusing to make a suitable back up of your system. I still keep my old faithful XP machine and it was easy to make a bu of system and a sys restore disc - walk in the park. I recenlty got a Win 7 HP pavilion machine after consulting with forum opinion. It has an even more user friendly bu system. Since W8 M$ has removed or hidden this system beyond the reach of mere mortals.

I consulted my local chief tech guy and he agreed there was no fool proof way to bu an 8.1 yourself at home. We ended up compromising on my bringing my machine in with external hd and they would do a disk image with their own s/w so I could keep it as a bu at home. Fair enough, I dont mind paying£50 for the service

BTW in trawling through the web looking for help, 99% of so called how posts were rubbish, waste of space, selling tp solutions. Didnt differentiate between data and system bu and avoided the issue of booting up a m/c with a new hd and reloading the image. My tech guy has his own tp business s/w to do this reliably, provided he made the image with his s/w

You will probably never know if your bu works till the SHTF

I cannot understand why the Tech press hasn't gone nuclear about this fundamental issue?

(But then why hasnt said press also gone nuclear about W10 and M$ controls your life - lets not go there)

Anyone share my anger at this M$ abuse of its customers?

I am seriously thinking of migrating back to my capable W7 machine, and W8.1 just a bu
but how long before M$ tries to poison w7 users (as it has tried with XP users)

BTW IMHO

PRC has only to lift its little finger and boost its PnP issues with their own Linux and drop it into the world for peanuts say and that would be the end of M$ - if you see my point

sorry for the rant:(

Robin
 

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Win 7 already has inbuilt sys image and restore disc function , as I said already
 

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For doc's photos etc simple save to OneDrive or Google drive and they are all safe in the cloud. Charging a lot of money for a disk image is bad a simple install of cloning software and schedule to backup solves all the problems
 

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Thats as clear as mud, details pls, maybe you are misunderstanding the difference between system bu and data bu

Personally I dont trust cloud storage as a small timer. What they say - if it looks too good to be true then...... (like M$ free updates)

Putting all your personall pix in someoneles hands (ransom or subscribe)

Sky has been secretly monitoring all its subscribers browsing habits, it has built up a huge db of these, such that users are receiving targetted ads etc, and now Murderoch want to takeover Sky and what do you think he will do with that db and its potential to influence elections

I recommend to you a netflix movie "the circle" that is scary, roll all the face book twitter sky google M$, drones spycams mega surveillance into a massive media/advert and control org 1984 x 1000

I studied the concept of file encryption apps, one offered from India seemed very competent yadayda

then I did a simple test on theri free trial, I crypted a small file and then went into a hex editor and changed one byte from 1 to zero

you guessed it, that file was irrecoverable

we all know abot error correction of bytes etc and how it works, ho school stuff, so in theory a hdd should take care of a rogue bit in an encrypted file????? I pt this question back to the seller, never heard from him again

also consider the malfeasant who , when coming across my encrytped file could easily do what i did and make the file useless
 

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Win 7 already has inbuilt sys image and restore disc function , as I said already

Just saying if you wanted something more reliable. ;)
 

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    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
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    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
Win 7 already has inbuilt sys image and restore disc function , as I said already
For many, that built-in function is a boon, for many others - it is a bust. 3rd party utilities such as EaseUS ToDo, AOMEI Backupper, Image for Windows, Macrium Reflect, just to name a few of many!, enjoy a greater success rate.
 
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pls enlighten on why it is a bust? I know there are some limitations on what it will ack up eg no encrytped files etc but if you kno w about these (which are made very clear if you look, then there is usually a work around, more than can be said of W 8.1 which is what I originally possted so we are somewhat off topic

I dont know of any tp freebies that will make a bootable disk image of 8.1
 

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I read many techie discussion/help boards that include Windows forums, and all I know is that many say the built-in backup / restore / clone utility is just fine; many other posters say that utility is not fine, it does not work or only works problematically for them. All I know is what I have read. To determine the whys and means of both success and failure, you would have to go on several techie boards and search their Windows forums.
 

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    Desktop w/Gigabyte
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    Two w/16GB, 1 w/8GB
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    Laptops GameWorthy; Desktop maybe GameWorthy
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    flatscreens; 2 are BluRay worthy
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I use Macrium and make complete (all partitions) hard drive backups (disc images). My experience with the Windows backup is that it does not backup everything and leaves empty holes. I do PC support and recommend to my clients that they use a 3rd party disc backup program and not the Microsoft.
 

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Yes indeed and it is what i have been doing for the past 2 weeks and now my brain is fried. In all my years I never realised what a fraught business this system backup/restore is, but then i never had a total collapse of a C: hdd before.

This nightmare has all been caused by M$ policy of tying the OS intimately into a machines hardware config, so it will only work on that unique m/c and cannot be ported around on a thumb drive say. Its as bad as Amazon seeling you an Ebook you dont own and cant sell on (for nearly the same price as the print version which you do own and can sell on)

Consider this guys

the PRC have specifically banned the use of M$ in any of its governemtn and related organisations, they use their own version of Linux - smart move. It would only take a tiny blip of their massiver manpower to beef up Linux to be more PnP friendly and then distribute this OS to the world for free for home use and perhaps a small support charge for enterprise use. Think what that would do to M$

Probably crash the world economy as M$ dissapeared down the toilet where it belongs

Linux Ubuntu can of course be run from a usb drive

Given how cheap big usb drives have become, I could have my entire desk top system run on a usb. FYI I ave a lite version of Adobe PS CS2 which runs on 50Mb (the original bloatware is several hundred Mb). This has all the normal functions and I have used it for 10+ years no issues. So it can be done

I think I'll make this a new project instead of fretting over Fuggin M$
 

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OK FB, got the idea, but let me check if I understand you correctly

"make complete (all partitions) hard drive backups (disc images)."

So these are on the main C: drive? So this would not have helped because my C: drive failed

I would need to put this system backup onto a separate physical drive kept inside the m/c. I would then have to physically swap the failed drive for this back up. Can this be done?
 

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Thanx FB, follwing the chorus of praise for Macrium I dl it and find I have to dl Windows PE as well from M$ (just cos Im paranoid doesnt make me wrong)
Never heard of WinPE 900MB but it seems its Wind pre-installation pack for booting up m/cs (well kept secret known only to techies). Its window vista on a stick - never stop learning

Any warnings about this? or shall I just do it (after I make a rstore point:cool:
 

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WinPE is only required if you make the bootable recovery media (CD or USB flash drive). It is not required if you just install Macrium and run from Windows. However, you want a bootable media in case the hard drive fails and you need restore (recreate) it to a new drive. In that case you would need to boot with the bootable recovery (rescure) media and restore to the new drive.

As the "all partitions" that means all partitions on the bootable OS drive. I have Win 10 (now) and when I installed Win 10 it created several small partitions, along with my "C" drive partition. To properly backup all partitions need to be backed up to a SEPARATE drive, not backed up to the same drive (e.g. recovery partition). Think about that, if your backup is on a partition on the same drive and the drive fails, the backup is lost too.

Macrium Reflect (and Acronis True Image) used to have an option to create a Linux rescue disc instead of the WinPE. However, some PC's didn't work well with the Linux disc and WinPE was needed. I had that problem years ago when I used Acronis True Image for backups. I had a drive fail and when I tried to boot up the Linux rescue disc, the Linux booted up OK but I didn't have mouse control and it was needed to operate Acronis. I got a WinPE version Acronis bootable rescue disc from a friend (that saved the day) and it booted and the mouse and keyboard worked OK in Acronis.
 

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    Sonar Platinum 64 bit recording studio software with MOTU 896Mk3 Hybrid recording interface unit.
OK Ill do that, great stuff
Sounds like everyone should take a masterclass in how to cobble your m/c:D
 

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