New to Windows: Backup question

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I am new to the PC world, at least to the realm of Windows self-administration. I have a machine with two RAID SS drives (128GB total) and a 1TB spinning HD. My system is on the SS drives. Recently one of the SS drives failed and getting the machine running again like it was before is an ongoing ordeal because the SS drives were not backed up. I don’t want to have to go through this again.

I apologize for the newbie question, but what is the best way to accomplish this? I have a legit Windows 7 installation disk. I also have a Voyager external HD dock at my disposal.

My wife’s iMac was stolen and she backs up daily. She bought a replacement computer, connected her backup drive to it, started a restore from backup and went to bed. The next morning, she booted up the new computer and it was as if nothing had happened. Can I set up something like that?

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Of course you can. Get one of the free backup programs we like and make an image / system backup to your external disk. Next make a recovery disk / USB from within the backup program.
Free backup programs – you can upgrade to the paid version if you like.
Easus ToDo
Paragon Backup
Macrium Reflect
See this thread for more info. http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//148152-What-s-the-best-free-backup-program

Once you have your recovery sorted you could add another internal disk to the machine to perform daily backups – you can never be too careful. Then copy those backup files to your external disk regularly – and do another image while you are at it.

cheers, Paul

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Personally, I like Macrium Reflect free version. It will do everything you need. You can make backup/copies of any partitions or the whole computer or let Macrium choose which partitions you will need for a restore. It has saved my butt several times.

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Did the MAC ever get recovered? I hope nobody “borrowed” personal information off of it.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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I hope nobody “borrowed” personal information off of it.

A very good reason for always using disk encryption on your laptop.

cheers, Paul

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I use the paid version of Macrium Reflect. The free version only does full backups, which require lots of diskspace if you want/need to save from multiple dates (VERY handy for retrieving that file that you accidentally deleted last week!) The paid version can also do incremental and differential backups. I have mine run nightly. It’s saved me a couple of times. When a drive dies I just boot from the Macrium Rescue Disk, point it to the backup file from the previous night and restore to a new disk. A few minutes later I’m logging in as if nothing changed. 🙂

Another consideration is offsite backup. What if your house floods or burns down or is burglarized and all of your precious technology devices are gone? Now where are your family pictures and other irreplaceable documents? :o: I use Crashplanto cover the worst case scenarios. It backs up continuously, 24×7. If you add or edit a file in the folders you have configured for backup, the changes go offsite within minutes. They have paid versions that backup to the cloud and a free version that can “backup to a friend” over the internet. You just setup a backup drive at someone elses house and configure it to capture your backups. The backup data is encrypted, so only YOU can see or retrieve it. 🙂 If Crashplan can’t backup for some reason (the remote drive died or your friend accidentally unplugged it, etc.) then you’ll get an email about it so you can resolve the situation.

In this era of digital everything it is incredibly important to have multiple copies of anything important to you. Far too many people realize this only after it is too late to do anything about it. 🙁

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As good as Crashplan is, which apparently is very good!, it is only as strong as its two weakest links, the person/computer combine at the backup receiving end, and the person/computer making the backup.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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