- #Lifehacker best windows backup software how to
- #Lifehacker best windows backup software install
- #Lifehacker best windows backup software software
- #Lifehacker best windows backup software Pc
I'll bet there are a lot of people like me dutifully doing their backups to similar external drive, never realizing it doesn't do any good if you lose the original hard drive.īrowser wrote:I have that on my Lenovo laptop and did the rescue backup to a set of DVDs. I assume that it will only run with the original hard drive to restore lost files to it. But I still couldn't do anything with that.
#Lifehacker best windows backup software software
At first nothing, and then I installed the software for it off the Passport. Then I went to the WD Passport external drive to restore all that stuff. But that's not much good because everything I've added to the hard drive since it was new is not included.
When I ran that with the new hard drive in the laptop it did indeed restore to the original configuration. I have that on my Lenovo laptop and did the rescue backup to a set of DVDs. In any case, if you rely on the factory's reset capability it would be a good thing to test immediately upon purchase. I have also seen other manufacturers that have a program which will burn a disk for you I'd guess most/all of those work well.
#Lifehacker best windows backup software Pc
I'd guess the top 5 or 6 PC manufacturers all have this sort of reset capability that works well. That said, I have had good experiences with both Dell and HP of resetting to "factory settings", which is essentially a hidden partition that will restore the PC to the original configuration, when selected from the bootup options area. True.I forgot that OS disks are getting rarer and rarer with purchased PCs. MathWizard wrote:Installing the OS is an OK option Ultra secure, fully automated and free, and if you have a lot of free disk space on your in-house computer, you can literally back up hundreds of gigabytes. I use it for myself and nearly all of my clients.
#Lifehacker best windows backup software install
Rebuild, update, restore data.Ī lot of people will tell you it is a good idea to periodically perform a fresh install of your OS (especially for Windows), anyway.īTW, for an excellent and FREE off-site backup service, is an excellent solution. iso format on your drive in case the disk is lost), and the installer executables for your applications. Just keep handy the CD/DVD of your OS (also in. I think it is better to just backup your data (both on-site and off-site), and always be prepared to re-install your OS and applications, which only takes about 2 hours if you're practiced. It's not hard to make most of them work, but I don't really recommend this approach. I'm an IT guy, and have used several cloning systems, including the above reviewed DriveImage XML and Clonezilla. You should be able to restore data files from that backup to any computer that is operational. It is just not good for what is generally called a "bare metal restore". I'm confused about the whole process and would appreciate help.įirst of all, your backup is not likely useless. The backup to an external drive needs to be able to "self-execute" or you need to have some kind of boot DVD that can get things up and running. If you put a naked new hard drive in your computer, there is no operating system on it so you can't run anything - including an external backup drive. What software, hardware do I need? I note there is a "Catch-22" involved. Glad I did this little beta test before it was too late. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but if so I can't figure it out. So if the original drive is dead the backup appears useless.
Apparently, all this thing can do is to restore files back to the original drive. I installed the Passport software onto the new drive and still nothing. Then I connected the Passport expecting to easily copy everything back to the new drive. I thought I'd test things out, so I bought a new hard drive and installed it in the laptop. I thought I was doing that because I've been using a WD Passport external hard drive and running the backup software periodically. The purpose would be to restore everything easily to a new hard drive in the event the current one fails.
#Lifehacker best windows backup software how to
I'd like to figure out how to make a duplicate (clone) backup of my entire laptop hard drive.