Solved Windows 8.1 - System Image Backup Solution; Fine Details

[rowlands111]

Hello eightforum users, I am a new member.

I own an OEM Machine which is from Acer.

To ask what is probably well known amongst IT pro's; does a system image backup solution (and consequently a restore from that image if needs be) work on OEM PC's, like a desktop from Acer, actually work without problems, and would I get a proper bootable and working machine after restoration.

Brief scenario - I have used Acronis TI 2014 (Or even the Windows 8.1 system image utility) to create an image of my C: Drive/EFI Partition/Recovery Partition - and backed it up to an external USB HDD.

My OS crashes for whatever reason and I can't boot.

I then either use my Acronis bootable media CD (which I've tested and boots despite all the secure boot/UEFI/GPT mania going about users like myself) to reinstall the Acronis disk image.

OR I use a Widnows 8.1 bootable disk with the ISO (which I've tested to boot) to reinstall the Windows created system image. (I could also use the recovery drive I created in Win 8.1, which just to add, however irrelvanat it might be, includes my OEM factory default partition which was copied as part of the recovery flash drive creation)

Would either of those restore solutions give me a reasonably likely working PC again - taking into account all the stuff I don't understand like the Windows 8.1 OEM key being on the motherboard (which I would understand in terms of Windows activation and authentication could have a negative impact on restoring images over an OEM installed OS and it's partitions)

If anyone can put my probably paranoid worries to bed, and verify that these procedures actually work in the new version of Windows - I'd be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Someone who is fumbling their way through this thing

**EDIT** PS, I suppose I could test this myself - but blah blah excuses blah blah I'm not much an expert, and use my PC to work, and if if I'm left without a working PC, or if I need to reinstall Windows from scratch and the image restores STILL don't work - then I lose all my company installed apps and can't work :'(

 

[Nuccii]

If you make an image backup of your drive with Acronis, you can use that image to recover to exactly what it was, the OS, programs, data, partitions etc. It will be exactly the same. I use Acronis Premium and it saved my bacon on a couple of occasions.

 

[Nuccii]

Thanks for the rep. It does work for an OEM machine, basically you are restoring the exact same image.

As for the 2nd part regarding OEM iso disc, a member here (genet) was kind enough to make a tutorial, follow post # 8

http://www.eightforums.com/installa...tted-genuine-windows-8-lenovo.html#post330277

Happy computing.

 

[rowlands111]

Thank you Nuccii. That perfectly addresses my concerns!

Sorry I couldn't reply sooner. I am currently limited, as I'm sure you're aware, to the no. of posts I can make as a new member.

Cheers!

 

[Yuri]

Thank you Nuccii. That perfectly addresses my concerns!

Sorry I couldn't reply sooner. I am currently limited, as I'm sure you're aware, to the no. of posts I can make as a new member.

Cheers!

Hello Rowlands

I know your problem is already solved however,

How about Windows System Image? It's also a very good tool and personally love it, since it's integrated with Windows RE. And they do work perfectly with your OEM version of Windows.

You should be able to read more about it, in an article I wrote about it here: Windows RE Image Recovery

Let me know you toughts about this System Image tool, personally I love it.

 

[rowlands111]

Thank you Nuccii. That perfectly addresses my concerns!

Sorry I couldn't reply sooner. I am currently limited, as I'm sure you're aware, to the no. of posts I can make as a new member.

Cheers!

Hello Rowlands

I know your problem is already solved however,

How about Windows System Image? It's also a very good tool and personally love it, since it's integrated with Windows RE. And they do work perfectly with your OEM version of Windows.

You should be able to read more about it, in an article I wrote about it here: Windows RE Image Recovery

Let me know you toughts about this System Image tool, personally I love it.

Hey Yuri,

Personally, I did give the Windows sytem image some consideration when it came to a back up solution. (I like your web site btw)

I appreciate you posting in terms of an OEM valid solution! The reason whey I'm being specific to this, is that recently, I hosed the Windows bootloader/efI/MBR....whatever it's called now in Windows 8.1! And believe it or not, Acer had to replace the whole hard drive, and reinstall the UEFI! :S That led me to believe there was some issues when restoring an image onto OEM hardware, be it bare metal, or a non booting OS. But, there was probably other variables that led Acer to replacing the disk.

All those details aside hehe, now that you mention it, i'll probably make a Windows image onto my external hdd just in case.

Would you mind me asking, as I've just ran through the Windows image steps a few minutes ago now that you mention this solution; do you have any idea why Windows isn't including Acer's recovery partition? I don't get the option for ''Push Button Recovery'' in the backup drive options. Do you reckon that would be an issue at all..as there are the options for EFI and the small recovery partition (which I THINK is the WinRE thing)

Cheers Yuri!

 

[rowlands111]

PS - When I hosed the bootloader, I didn't have any recovery or backup solutions created hence why the PC was sent to Acer.

Yes...just shoot me now for being so silly as to not create the media :'( Hehe

 

[Clintlgm]

PS - When I hosed the bootloader, I didn't have any recovery or backup solutions created hence why the PC was sent to Acer.

Yes...just shoot me now for being so silly as to not create the media :'( Hehe

Yea just for clarity regardless of what program you use you need to Image the complete disk/SSD don't make the mistake of making images of your partitions. A Disk Image is a complete image of your disk.

Now I do keep images of my C:\ partition, as if only windows is screwed up I can just restore C:\ partition if other things are going on I just restore the Disk Image. I also keep these Images up to date. Disk about once a month and C:\ partition about once a week. I also don't keep any data files on my C:\ Partition. Data files daily two Cloud systems and one hard copy here on a external drive

I personally didn't have a lot of luck with Acronis THI. Acronis started telling us in 2012 that they were UEFI ready, well they weren't and even into 2014 version they were still having failures with restores. I believe around March they finally got it right don't remember which build number. I don't much care as I've moved my back ups to Macrium Reflect for my UEFI and Windows 8 machines. The Win 7 MBR machines are for sure good with ATHI. And My UEFI machines are for sure good with MR

 

[rowlands111]

PS - When I hosed the bootloader, I didn't have any recovery or backup solutions created hence why the PC was sent to Acer.

Yes...just shoot me now for being so silly as to not create the media :'( Hehe

Yea just for clarity regardless of what program you use you need to Image the complete disk/SSD don't make the mistake of making images of your partitions. A Disk Image is a complete image of your disk.

Now I do keep images of my C:\ partition, as if only windows is screwed up I can just restore C:\ partition if other things are going on I just restore the Disk Image. I also keep these Images up to date. Disk about once a month and C:\ partition about once a week. I also don't keep any data files on my C:\ Partition. Data files daily two Cloud systems and one hard copy here on a external drive

I personally didn't have a lot of luck with Acronis THI. Acronis started telling us in 2012 that they were UEFI ready, well they weren't and even into 2014 version they were still having failures with restores. I believe around March they finally got it right don't remember which build number. I don't much care as I've moved my back ups to Macrium Reflect for my UEFI and Windows 8 machines. The Win 7 MBR machines are for sure good with ATHI. And My UEFI machines are for sure good with MR

I won't now just to be safe, cheers! Will definitely select ''Disk Mode'' in True Image 2014 as opposed to just manually selecting all of the partitions. (if I continue to use that product as the go to solution)


[Quote\Acronis started telling us in 2012 that they were UEFI ready, well they weren't and even into 2014 version they were still having failures with restores. I believe around March they finally got it right don't remember which build number. I don't much care as I've moved my back ups to Macrium Reflect for my UEFI and Windows 8 machines. The Win 7 MBR machines are for sure good with ATHI. And My UEFI machines are for sure good with MR[/QUOTE]

You sir, are a scholar for giving me the above info - I will check out Macrium as a matter of urgency, as it's nice to get confirmation that software actually works in these new configurations.

( I really hope the above quote attempt works haha)

 

[Clintlgm]

PS - When I hosed the bootloader, I didn't have any recovery or backup solutions created hence why the PC was sent to Acer.

Yes...just shoot me now for being so silly as to not create the media :'( Hehe

Yea just for clarity regardless of what program you use you need to Image the complete disk/SSD don't make the mistake of making images of your partitions. A Disk Image is a complete image of your disk.

Now I do keep images of my C:\ partition, as if only windows is screwed up I can just restore C:\ partition if other things are going on I just restore the Disk Image. I also keep these Images up to date. Disk about once a month and C:\ partition about once a week. I also don't keep any data files on my C:\ Partition. Data files daily two Cloud systems and one hard copy here on a external drive

I personally didn't have a lot of luck with Acronis THI. Acronis started telling us in 2012 that they were UEFI ready, well they weren't and even into 2014 version they were still having failures with restores. I believe around March they finally got it right don't remember which build number. I don't much care as I've moved my back ups to Macrium Reflect for my UEFI and Windows 8 machines. The Win 7 MBR machines are for sure good with ATHI. And My UEFI machines are for sure good with MR

I won't now just to be safe, cheers! Will definitely select ''Disk Mode'' in True Image 2014 as opposed to just manually selecting all of the partitions. (if I continue to use that product as the go to solution)


[Quote\Acronis started telling us in 2012 that they were UEFI ready, well they weren't and even into 2014 version they were still having failures with restores. I believe around March they finally got it right don't remember which build number. I don't much care as I've moved my back ups to Macrium Reflect for my UEFI and Windows 8 machines. The Win 7 MBR machines are for sure good with ATHI. And My UEFI machines are for sure good with MR

You sir, are a scholar for giving me the above info - I will check out Macrium as a matter of urgency, as it's nice to get confirmation that software actually works in these new configurations.

( I really hope the above quote attempt works haha)[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the rep points, If you have the latest version of ATHI and you create a disk image it should restore and boot. I don't know or sure but I follow several thread in Acronis support forum. The people there are having success now. As far as a separate C:\ partition image that is a good thing as most times its all you need to save your butt, but if you lose your hard drive or have one in the process of dyeing your going to need the Disk Image. UEFI is a different thing all together and it needs the 3 or 4 partition created on install to boot operate. The thing I like about MR is that it works first off, 2nd they follow there support forum regularly, and their tech support all Speak English as native language.

 

[iain]

Hello eightforum users, I am a new member.

I own an OEM Machine which is from Acer.

To ask what is probably well known amongst IT pro's; does a system image backup solution (and consequently a restore from that image if needs be) work on OEM PC's, like a desktop from Acer, actually work without problems, and would I get a proper bootable and working machine after restoration.

Brief scenario - I have used Acronis TI 2014 (Or even the Windows 8.1 system image utility) to create an image of my C: Drive/EFI Partition/Recovery Partition - and backed it up to an external USB HDD.

My OS crashes for whatever reason and I can't boot.

I then either use my Acronis bootable media CD (which I've tested and boots despite all the secure boot/UEFI/GPT mania going about users like myself) to reinstall the Acronis disk image.

OR I use a Widnows 8.1 bootable disk with the ISO (which I've tested to boot) to reinstall the Windows created system image. (I could also use the recovery drive I created in Win 8.1, which just to add, however irrelvanat it might be, includes my OEM factory default partition which was copied as part of the recovery flash drive creation)

Would either of those restore solutions give me a reasonably likely working PC again - taking into account all the stuff I don't understand like the Windows 8.1 OEM key being on the motherboard (which I would understand in terms of Windows activation and authentication could have a negative impact on restoring images over an OEM installed OS and it's partitions)

If anyone can put my probably paranoid worries to bed, and verify that these procedures actually work in the new version of Windows - I'd be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Someone who is fumbling their way through this thing

**EDIT** PS, I suppose I could test this myself - but blah blah excuses blah blah I'm not much an expert, and use my PC to work, and if if I'm left without a working PC, or if I need to reinstall Windows from scratch and the image restores STILL don't work - then I lose all my company installed apps and can't work :'(

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I'm planning to purchase a new business-class laptop with Win 8.1 Pro installed and this backup issue concerns me greatly.

I'm running Win 7 Ultimate SP1 on my current machine. Shadow copies and the ability to create a system image and subsequently restore from it are top priority features I value highly on Win 7.

What was Microsoft thinking when they deprecated this feature for Windows 8.1?

This new machine will be customised by Toshiba and Win 8.1 is the default OS. One available option is an OS downgrade to Win 7 Pro on the new machine which will be a Toshiba Tecra A50-A. Would that be a good idea, considering Microsoft are discontinuing mainstream support for Win 7 in January 2015?

 

[iain]

Contacted Microsoft and they referred this thread:
System Image Windows 8.1 - Microsoft Community

 

[rowlands111]

From this thread and after a lot of research, AND testing with the software, I confirmed that Macrium seems to be a really powerful imaging tool. I work from home for my company and I need to have an exceptionally reliable backup system, and Macrium really does fit the bill.

With Windows 8.1 native imaging, that's probably fine to use, but I'd honestly advise to download Macrium Free (or pay for the Standard version if you want incremental/differential backups) - I've verified it to be nigh on 100% reliable, even with the new technology that Windows 8/.1 brings (UEFI..etc.).

 

[iain]

From this thread and after a lot of research, AND testing with the software, I confirmed that Macrium seems to be a really powerful imaging tool. I work from home for my company and I need to have an exceptionally reliable backup system, and Macrium really does fit the bill.

With Windows 8.1 native imaging, that's probably fine to use, but I'd honestly advise to download Macrium Free (or pay for the Standard version if you want incremental/differential backups) - I've verified it to be nigh on 100% reliable, even with the new technology that Windows 8/.1 brings (UEFI..etc.).

Under Vista/Win 7. I viewed the incremental/differential system image backup feature with a great deal of scepticism. I always quick formatted the backup disk before creating a new system image on it.

Thanks for the information of Macrium as it seems to be a quite powerful system image application. However, the real test is when you must have a viable system image to be able to restore from. Have you done this yet?

 

[rowlands111]

From this thread and after a lot of research, AND testing with the software, I confirmed that Macrium seems to be a really powerful imaging tool. I work from home for my company and I need to have an exceptionally reliable backup system, and Macrium really does fit the bill.

With Windows 8.1 native imaging, that's probably fine to use, but I'd honestly advise to download Macrium Free (or pay for the Standard version if you want incremental/differential backups) - I've verified it to be nigh on 100% reliable, even with the new technology that Windows 8/.1 brings (UEFI..etc.).

Under Vista/Win 7. I viewed the incremental/differential system image backup feature with a great deal of scepticism. I always quick formatted the backup disk before creating a new system image on it.

Thanks for the information of Macrium as it seems to be a quite powerful system image application. However, the real test is when you must have a viable system image to be able to restore from. Have you done this yet?

I certainly have.

For an example: I have an application on my computer called RSA Secure ID. It generates a unique, single use token code so that I can log onto my works' Citrix based applications platform (just another layer of security on top of my password).

RSA Secure ID working properly (and what makes it useful) is subject to it generating a serial number of a user's computer (as far as I am aware, if generates this serial based on the motherboard and hard drive) - if it detects that the hard drive or MB has been changed, then the serial will change, and the token codes will not generate.

With this in mind, if I were to restore a backup from Macrium, could I be sure that the restore image will be EXACTLY the same, and valid, so as not to affect this critical serial number?

The answer is yes - perfectly. After risking a restore (so I knew that my system was crash proof) everything worked as it should. And even the scenario with OEM Windows 8.1 machines' product keys being encoded onto the motherboard; the restore image so so valid as to not "mess with that" -

Based on these parameters for success - I can safely say that Macrium Reflect is an outstanding product.

 

[Nuccii]

I use Acronis True Image 2015 whereas I perform incremental image back ups with a new full image performed after 5 incremental backups. Have tested the restores of both features and never had a problem.

I also use Macrium image backup, call me paranoid, but never tested the incremental method. Full image recovery never posed a problem.

 

[David Bailey]

Thanks for the information of Macrium as it seems to be a quite powerful system image application. However, the real test is when you must have a viable system image to be able to restore from. Have you done this yet?

Yes. Several times.

The backup was flawless.

I would suggest the paid Standard version.
I use it.
It has a boot time Macrium Recovery Option.
Easy to use.



I would also suggest formatting your USB as NTFS so you get one big image file.
Fat or Fat 32 results in a bunch of 4 GB files.

Hope this helps.

 

[rowlands111]

Three users vouching for the software.

Probably a safe bet.

 

[SIW2]

Yes, it does the job. There are several alternatives, Aomei Backupper is popular, it has incremental/differentail in the free version. Paragon do a free version which works well. You could have a look at a few and see which you prefer.

Best Free Backup Software for Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, XP

Backup & Recovery Free Edition - Overview

 

[iain]

Three users vouching for the software.

Probably a safe bet.

Indeed.

BTW, my backup disk is NTFS formatted 500 Gb Western Digital Scorpio Black, enclosed in a Vantec enclosure using eSATA/USB 3.0 interface. Anyone see a problem with that?