Question Backup question

Jiry_XD

Distinguished
Feb 7, 2017
265
7
18,795
Hey all,

I want to backup the important files on my PC, however I am a very unorganised person and all the files are scattered over my C: drive.
Is there a program that can help me find the important files?

If not, what is an effective way to look in all folders for my important files?

Thanks!
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
Hey all,

I want to backup the important files on my PC, however I am a very unorganised person and all the files are scattered over my C: drive.
Is there a program that can help me find the important files?

If not, what is an effective way to look in all folders for my important files?

Thanks!
How do you define "important" ? The find option in windows file explorer works well.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Hey all,

I want to backup the important files on my PC, however I am a very unorganised person and all the files are scattered over my C: drive.
Is there a program that can help me find the important files?

If not, what is an effective way to look in all folders for my important files?

Thanks!
You are the only entity on the planet that knows what is "important".
There is no hardware or software or other person that can define that for you.

This is specifically why I advocate full drive backups.
Can't accidentally forget something.

 
There are some superb tools to instantly locate any file...........IF I SAY IF...............you know the file name or major portions of it. In less than one second.

You are probably in trouble if you would name a barbecue recipe "cool stuff I learned last April".

You've got a good chance if you would name it "barbecue related".

Don't know what name you would give that file. Your "very unorganized" nature may defeat your efforts unless you are willing to navigate to and actually open hundreds or thousands of files to see what they contain.

I think Windows search tool can index file contents to some extent, but don't know if you have indexing turned on.

It pays to have a detailed folder structure....where food related files might be put in a "food" folder. I'm guessing you don't qualify and may have very few personal data sub-folders.

You may have to back up "everything" and deal with the lack of organization after the fact...that may require a larger target drive than you'd like.
 
Last edited:

Jiry_XD

Distinguished
Feb 7, 2017
265
7
18,795
Thing is, I know there are important files, but I don't know which ones anymore, since this pc has not been formatted since 2 years.

So I think I will go for a full drive backup, what is a good program for this?
 

Jiry_XD

Distinguished
Feb 7, 2017
265
7
18,795
You are the only entity on the planet that knows what is "important".
There is no hardware or software or other person that can define that for you.

This is specifically why I advocate full drive backups.
Can't accidentally forget something.

How can I do a full drive backup with 100% guarantee that everything from that drive is backed up, and won't go corrupt?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
How can I do a full drive backup with 100% guarantee that everything from that drive is backed up, and won't go corrupt?
I use Macrium Reflect.

Caveat...it encapsulates the whole contents into a single file.
Later, you can Mount that as a drive letter, and cruise through it as needed.

My routine, somewhat modified since I wrote this:


Currently, I do a full drive backup, of each drive individually, once a week.
Keep 3 iterations, deleting the oldest as it goes.
 

Jiry_XD

Distinguished
Feb 7, 2017
265
7
18,795
I use Macrium Reflect.

Caveat...it encapsulates the whole contents into a single file.
Later, you can Mount that as a drive letter, and cruise through it as needed.

My routine, somewhat modified since I wrote this:


Currently, I do a full drive backup, of each drive individually, once a week.
Keep 3 iterations, deleting the oldest as it goes.
Thankyou for the info, I have currently downloaded Macrium Reflect, as I understand I have the option between:

  • Image Backup.
  • FULL DRIVE backup, with original files.
I have a couple of questions about the image backup method:
How do I access the files in the image?
Will EVERY file be put in that image, including config, logs, temp files, .....?
Is this basically equivalent to a "FULL DRIVE backup, with original files" but then it compresses it into 1 image file?
Is it easy/ doesn't take very to mount that file, in case I needed a single folder?

Thanks for the help :)
 
Last edited:

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Thankyou for the info, I have currently downloaded Macrium Reflect, as I understand I have the option between:

  • Image Backup.
  • FULL DRIVE backup, with original files.
I have a couple of questions about the image backup method:
How do I access the files in the image?
Will EVERY file be put in that image, including config, logs, temp files, .....?
Is this basically equivalent to a "FULL DRIVE backup, with original files" but then it compresses it into 1 image file?

Thanks for the help :)
A Macrium is the entire contents of whatever drive or partitions you select.
Everything (almost). It does leave off temp files, pagefile, hibernation. Those are ephemeral and would not really be needed if you have to recover that whole Image.

Accessing the files in the Image?
Rare that you might need to do that. The originals still reside on your source drive.
But, within the Macrium client, you can Mount an Image as a drive letter, and cruise through it in File Explorer.

This is very helpful if you do an Image (Full, Incremental, or Differential) on a scheduled basis.
"I need the copy of my resume from last Tuesday. "
Mount that Image, and go find that particular version of the file.
 
Thankyou for the info, I have currently downloaded Macrium Reflect, as I understand I have the option between:

  • Image Backup.
  • FULL DRIVE backup, with original files.
I have a couple of questions about the image backup method:
How do I access the files in the image?
:)

An "image backup" is (for practical purposes) a "full drive backup" IF you include ALL partitions in the image file.

You choose which partitions you want to include.

It will be 1 big file....somewhere around 60 percent of the size of the occupied space it represents. That's at the default medium compression. The high compression option doesn't compress much more.

The file will have an .mrimg extension.

You access the files by double clicking the image file, which mounts the drive in File Explorer with a temporary drive letter. You poke around it as you see fit.
 

Jiry_XD

Distinguished
Feb 7, 2017
265
7
18,795
A Macrium is the entire contents of whatever drive or partitions you select.
Everything (almost). It does leave off temp files, pagefile, hibernation. Those are ephemeral and would not really be needed if you have to recover that whole Image.

Accessing the files in the Image?
Rare that you might need to do that. The originals still reside on your source drive.
But, within the Macrium client, you can Mount an Image as a drive letter, and cruise through it in File Explorer.

This is very helpful if you do an Image (Full, Incremental, or Differential) on a scheduled basis.
"I need the copy of my resume from last Tuesday. "
Mount that Image, and go find that particular version of the file.
Thanks macrium reflect works perfectly, and has made a good backup for me.

However this is my first time using this for backups, and I can't trust on one source that I've never used before to hold my data.
I've tried to copy my whole C: drive folder to my external hdd, but it won't let me saying x program is running and stops at 40 gigs of the 460gigs.
How can I backup my C: drive manually / witouth macrium for another source of backup?

Thanks
 
How can I backup my C: drive manually / witouth macrium for another source of backup?

Thanks

If you want to back up "everything" on the drive, you don't have much choice other than to use Macrium or a similar program.

There are similar programs. None of which I would call "manually".

If you want to back up only "personal data", you have a lot of choices.

You had best familiarize yourself with the restoration process. All you may have done so far is make an image. That's of little use......unless you can restore it.

How large is your image file?

First step would be to make Macrium rescue media. Have you done that?

Exactly what would you do if your hard drive failed one hour from now?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Thanks macrium reflect works perfectly, and has made a good backup for me.

However this is my first time using this for backups, and I can't trust on one source that I've never used before to hold my data.
I've tried to copy my whole C: drive folder to my external hdd, but it won't let me saying x program is running and stops at 40 gigs of the 460gigs.
How can I backup my C: drive manually / witouth macrium for another source of backup?

Thanks
You can't simply copy the whole C drive, or even 'just windows'.
Copy/paste will not work. There are many many things going on behind the scenes.
 

Jiry_XD

Distinguished
Feb 7, 2017
265
7
18,795
If you want to back up "everything" on the drive, you don't have much choice other than to use Macrium or a similar program.

There are similar programs. None of which I would call "manually".

If you want to back up only "personal data", you have a lot of choices.

You had best familiarize yourself with the restoration process. All you may have done so far is make an image. That's of little use......unless you can restore it.

How large is your image file?

First step would be to make Macrium rescue media. Have you done that?

Exactly what would you do if your hard drive failed one hour from now?
Thanks,
My image file now is about 290 gigs, if it were to fail now I have a backup either on my original drive or on the image drive, they are on different drives.
I have youtubed a bit and yes I know what the rescue media is, it is basically a bootable usb that allows you to put the image back on the drives
 

Jiry_XD

Distinguished
Feb 7, 2017
265
7
18,795
The other half of a backup is knowing how to recover, and be prepared to recover.

Do you have a Macrium Rescue USB made?
If not, you need to do this. Now.
Do I need this USB beforehand? I cannot make it on another pc when my pc is corrupt?
And like I stated above I don't really trust 1 image file to keep all my data safe and sound, is there any other program/technique I can use to back up my data in another form, since I tried just copying the whole drive but that didn't work like you pointed me out above.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Do I need this USB beforehand? I cannot make it on another pc when my pc is corrupt?
And like I stated above I don't really trust 1 image file to keep all my data safe and sound, is there any other program/technique I can use to back up my data in another form, since I tried just copying the whole drive but that didn't work like you pointed me out above.
Yes, you can make the Rescue on a different PC later. I just prefer to be prepared.
I have one stashed in the bottom of my PC case, just in case.

There are other similar programs.
I use Macrium, and I know it works. I've had to use it to recover after a physically dead SSD.