Windows 10

I'll follow your suggestions

Who knows but perhaps this is just the beginning

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3094785/windows/yes-windows-1...

I am doing everything possible to insure that Windows 7 can continue to do the flawless job it is doing on both of my PCs.

In the future, if it is necessary to abandon Windows 7, I am ready to go to Linux. I just ordered a Windows 7 Dell Optiplex box for $100- plus a book on Linux Mint. The plan is to format Windows and install Linux!

dobs108

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-10-deadline-j...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-12/microsoft-...

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-tes...

dobs108

I have 3 computers: Laptop, Video Editing Server, and an older 3rd.
If W7 becomes un-useable for normal operations, here is my plan:

On Laptop... Go to Linux... I have no background in Linux. I know it will be painful, but I'm willing to do so.

On the Video Editing Server.... I'll remove the ethernet cable and continue on.... It will be a stand alone video editor... My Editing software (CS6) is owned, and does not need constant remote blessing.

The third computer.... It will be retired...

double post, sorry

Our son came over yesterday with his Windows 7 computer. We have unlimited internet and he does not. He wanted to update his Windows 7 to Windows 10. He did everything the instructions told him to do before he started. He then started at 3:30 pm and could not get the update to run. He finally, after 2 or 3 hours went to a Microsoft direct page with the server for Windows 10 (as he was told when surfing for an answer) and started Windows 10 upgrade. After several hour and only at 96% he took the kids and wife home to come back this morning. We went to bed at midnight with 97% and work up at 3:30 am with a light from the screen. It said Update complete restart your PC. We clicked restart and a box popes up for a couple of minutes and it said "Your PC is not able to upgrade to Windows 10". It then rebooted to the original Windows 7. Our son came this morning to get the Windows 10 (still Windows 7) PC and said he would keep it at Windows 7. Before he left with his computer he turned all of Windows Updates off. He was disgusted with Microsoft and the day he wasted.

The reason could be anything..

One thing I discovered when updating a buddies system I got the same message.

After running a disk defrag and then a CHKDISK,the upgrade to M$ 10 completed normally.

There are some motherboards that are incompatable w/10!

He can try the chkdsk trick and try again.

Why would he be disgusted with Microsoft when his PC IS NOT ABLE TO UPGRADE to Windows 10? That's like being disgusted with the maker of an old cathode ray tube (CRT) black & white computer monitor for not displaying color... Yes? No? Maybe so?

In my post I stated that the download and install lasted from 3pm until 3am the next morning. Microsoft ran a report and said his computer was able to be updated to Windows 10. If the computer could not be undated to Windows 10 Microsoft should have said that after they ran the test on the computer and not caused us to waist 12 hours with MICROSOFT SAYING IT COULD BE UPDATED THEN RUNNING 12 HOURS SAYING IT WAS DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING WINDOWS 10. IT ALSO SAID WINDOWS HAS UPDATED YOUR COMPUTER TO WINDOWS 10 AND TO REBOOT THE COMPUTER. ANY NORMAL PERSON WOULD AND SHOULD BE DISCUSSED WITH MICROSOFT AFTER MICROSOFT PUT YOU THROUGH 12 HOURS OF SAYING THEY WERE DOING SOMETHING AND THEN TURN AROUND AND SAY THEY DIDN'T DO IT.........

Just so you know, there are factors beyond the system specification test (as noted below):
'The upgradeability of a device includes factors beyond the system specification. This includes driver and firmware support, application compatibility, and feature support, regardless of whether or not the device meets the minimum system specification for Windows 10.'

~~~~

It's my understanding that the so-called 'test' to determine if a computer can be updated to Windows 10 is a preliminary (exploratory) test, but not necessarily the ultimate or final evaluation and approval needed.

I'm told there are many things that could cause the update to download and to start installing and then be aborted, or to fail, before completion. There are certain things pertaining to the computer, and there are things that are found during the update installation process, which could cause issues/problems. I would guess there was likely something about that particular computer that caused the update installation process to be terminated before completion.

You seem to be very quick to blame Microsoft, but...do you really know if the computer was the cause, or if Microsoft rejected the computer for a reason? Regardless of which it is - you do not know why the update failed...nor exactly where to place the blame, do you?. Certainly, there is no way that your son's computer is to blame, therefore it must be Microsoft. Right? (This kind of thoughtless view is all-too-often very typical of many people when it comes to this sort of thing.)

There are many dozens of reasons why update installations fail. It could be something as simple as disabling the Antivirus software or temporary stopping a schedule process(es) to allow the update installation process to go smoothly without interruptions. Some operations such as installation of updates cannot be performed twice simultaneously.

Anyone else had this problem?
He did everything Microsoft said, enclosing disabling his virus protection. Everything was done by Microsoft's qualifications.
I am interested to here from someone else who also had this problem.

You are purposely avoiding the absolute fact that Microsoft cannot guarantee that a particular PC will be compatible even though it meets system specification requirements. As I have already quoted; 'The upgradeability of a device includes FACTORS BEYOND the system specification (which you refer to as 'Microsoft's qualifications'). This includes driver and firmware support, application compatibility, and feature support, regardless of whether or not the device meets the minimum system specification for Windows 10.'

There are many (dozens) potential reasons/problems/issues that prevent a successful update. Here's a list...

Windows Update Error Codes:

0x80240001 WU_E_NO_SERVICE Windows Update Agent was unable to provide the service.
0x80240002 WU_E_MAX_CAPACITY_REACHED The maximum capacity of the service was exceeded.
0x80240003 WU_E_UNKNOWN_ID An ID cannot be found.
0x80240004 WU_E_NOT_INITIALIZED The object could not be initialized.
0x80240005 WU_E_RANGEOVERLAP The update handler requested a byte range overlapping a previously requested range.
0x80240006 WU_E_TOOMANYRANGES The requested number of byte ranges exceeds the maximum number (2^31 - 1).
0x80240007 WU_E_INVALIDINDEX The index to a collection was invalid.
0x80240008 WU_E_ITEMNOTFOUND The key for the item queried could not be found.
0x80240009 WU_E_OPERATIONINPROGRESS Another conflicting operation was in progress. Some operations such as installation cannot be performed twice simultaneously.
0x8024000A WU_E_COULDNOTCANCEL Cancellation of the operation was not allowed.
0x8024000B WU_E_CALL_CANCELLED Operation was cancelled.
0x8024000C WU_E_NOOP No operation was required.
0x8024000D WU_E_XML_MISSINGDATA Windows Update Agent could not find required information in the update's XML data.
0x8024000E WU_E_XML_INVALID Windows Update Agent found invalid information in the update's XML data.
0x8024000F WU_E_CYCLE_DETECTED Circular update relationships were detected in the metadata.
0x80240010 WU_E_TOO_DEEP_RELATION Update relationships too deep to evaluate were evaluated.
0x80240011 WU_E_INVALID_RELATIONSHIP An invalid update relationship was detected.
0x80240012 WU_E_REG_VALUE_INVALID An invalid registry value was read.
0x80240013 WU_E_DUPLICATE_ITEM Operation tried to add a duplicate item to a list.
0x80240016 WU_E_INSTALL_NOT_ALLOWED Operation tried to install while another installation was in progress or the system was pending a mandatory restart.
0x80240017 WU_E_NOT_APPLICABLE Operation was not performed because there are no applicable updates.
0x80240018 WU_E_NO_USERTOKEN Operation failed because a required user token is missing.
0x80240019 WU_E_EXCLUSIVE_INSTALL_CONFLICT An exclusive update cannot be installed with other updates at the same time.
0x8024001A WU_E_POLICY_NOT_SET A policy value was not set.
0x8024001B WU_E_SELFUPDATE_IN_PROGRESS The operation could not be performed because the Windows Update Agent is self-updating.
0x8024001D WU_E_INVALID_UPDATE An update contains invalid metadata.
0x8024001E WU_E_SERVICE_STOP Operation did not complete because the service or system was being shut down.
0x8024001F WU_E_NO_CONNECTION Operation did not complete because the network connection was unavailable.
0x80240020 WU_E_NO_INTERACTIVE_USER Operation did not complete because there is no logged-on interactive user.
0x80240021 WU_E_TIME_OUT Operation did not complete because it timed out.
0x80240022 WU_E_ALL_UPDATES_FAILED Operation failed for all the updates.
0x80240023 WU_E_EULAS_DECLINED The license terms for all updates were declined.
0x80240024 WU_E_NO_UPDATE There are no updates.
0x80240025 WU_E_USER_ACCESS_DISABLED Group Policy settings prevented access to Windows Update.
0x80240026 WU_E_INVALID_UPDATE_TYPE The type of update is invalid.
0x80240027 WU_E_URL_TOO_LONG The URL exceeded the maximum length.
0x80240028 WU_E_UNINSTALL_NOT_ALLOWED The update could not be uninstalled because the request did not originate from a WSUS server.
0x80240029 WU_E_INVALID_PRODUCT_LICENSE Search may have missed some updates before there is an unlicensed application on the system.
0x8024002A WU_E_MISSING_HANDLER A component required to detect applicable updates was missing.
0x8024002B WU_E_LEGACYSERVER An operation did not complete because it requires a newer version of server.
0x8024002C WU_E_BIN_SOURCE_ABSENT A delta-compressed update could not be installed because it required the source.
0x8024002D WU_E_SOURCE_ABSENT A full-file update could not be installed because it required the source.
0x8024002E WU_E_WU_DISABLED Access to an unmanaged server is not allowed.
0x8024002F WU_E_CALL_CANCELLED_BY_POLICY Operation did not complete because the DisableWindowsUpdateAccess policy was set.
0x80240030 WU_E_INVALID_PROXY_SERVER The format of the proxy list was invalid.
0x80240031 WU_E_INVALID_FILE The file is in the wrong format.
0x80240032 WU_E_INVALID_CRITERIA The search criteria string was invalid.
0x80240033 WU_E_EULA_UNAVAILABLE License terms could not be downloaded.
0x80240034 WU_E_DOWNLOAD_FAILED Update failed to download.
0x80240035 WU_E_UPDATE_NOT_PROCESSED The update was not processed.
0x80240036 WU_E_INVALID_OPERATION The object's current state did not allow the operation.
0x80240037 WU_E_NOT_SUPPORTED The functionality for the operation is not supported.
0x80240038 WU_E_WINHTTP_INVALID_FILE The downloaded file has an unexpected content type.
0x80240039 WU_E_TOO_MANY_RESYNC Agent is asked by server to resync too many times.
0x80240040 WU_E_NO_SERVER_CORE_SUPPORT WUA API method does not run on Server Core installation.
0x80240041 WU_E_SYSPREP_IN_PROGRESS Service is not available while sysprep is running.
0x80240042 WU_E_UNKNOWN_SERVICE The update service is no longer registered with AU.
0x80240FFF WU_E_UNEXPECTED An operation failed due to reasons not covered by another error code.

I have never been rude to you.
You are hurting my feelings by attacking me this way.

I certainly do not mean to hurt your feelings, and I am most definitely not attacking you. However, I am trying my best to help you by giving you proper and factual information - something that you have not acknowledged, and seem to purposely overlook or avoid taking into consideration in trying to figure out why your son's PC failed to successfully complete the Windows 10 update. I am not the one that is seeking help. I'm sorry that you are unwilling to accept my help that may enlighten and inform you.

I had two dual boot computer with Windows 7 and Ubuntu. One computer successfully upgraded to Window 10, so that remains a dual boot computer.

On the second computer, the attempted upgrade to Windows 10 totally trashed the partition tables. The computer would not boot either. I "fixed" it by reinstalling Ubuntu as the sole operating system.

Take this instance as a reason to back-up your computer before doing anything. The back-up made the reinstall of Ubuntu fairly painless.

On July 21, 2016 Ubuntu is supposed to release its next incremental upgrade. So if upgrading to Windows 10 has failed and/or you are tired of Windows try Linux. Of course, research which version of Linux you would like to run.

I know nothing about Linux. Will have to look into this. Thanks.

Install Oracle's VirtualBox (on Windows, OS X, or Linux) and try different operating systems before you go to the trouble of a multi-booting installation.

DistroWatch.com has a lot of info on what is out there in the Linux world and popular.

I currently have about 20 different versions of Linux installed in VirtualBox on my 6 1/2 year old iMac and had Windows XP as well before M$ dropped support.

I recently installed Ubuntu 16.04 to multi-boot on the iMac and a 9 1/2 year old MacBook Pro laptop. The iMac needs an ATI Radeon driver that is being developed, but Ubuntu fine on a TV that I use as a second monitor.

Thanks for the great information.
Mary

With VirtualBox you will be running your host and a guest operating system concurrently, so you will need a CPU with at least 2 cores. Extra RAM can be helpful.

M$ has made BASH available for developers in Windows 10, and I am seeing articles the last week or two on some who have Ubuntu running in Windows 10 natively now.

M$ is becoming much more friendly to open source. It makes it possible to learn more about our computers' workings.

Always great to learn new stuff.
Thanks

I keep getting this error (1935) when I attempt to open microsoft
suudent home and office 2007. Any suggestions?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vis...

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-...

-----
Motherboards, memory (RAM), and drivers are obvious reasons why a machine may have difficulty with a new OS. Some people forget that when you have an older machine or you buy the least expensive machine, with older or even already outdated parts, that choice will at some point limit the ability to upgrade that device in the future (unless they are able to update drivers, replace the hard drive, or add memory). Also, if you have errors or incompatibility issues in your present OS, there is no guarantee that your install of a new OS, or the removal of your old OS, with with problem free. In fact, I would suggest resolving those issues first. Just my .02.

Just as a suggestion. You may want to install Driver Booster just to see if you have any outdated drivers.Free version http://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php

Thanks for your advice.

He has a high end, newer Windows 7 PC. As I stated in my earlier post he ran compatibility test and fixed all issues that were reported. He also stopped all processes, turned off his virus protection. He surfed and read a lot before ever trying to install and any and all suggestions to get his computer ready to upgrade.

The frustrating thing was when he watch for hours the "Downloading, then The Installing and then finally after hours of the downloading and installing the statement " Your computer has been upgraded to Windows 10, restart now" then for a box to come up and say "this computer can not be upgraded to Windows 10".
I think anyone would be frustrated and I have no idea why it made Koot so mad at me for saying that, but that is water under the bridge and I don't want to discuss his problems.

My son has just decided to not try again and keep Windows 7 and he thinks that is probably a better thing to do anyway. He will use it as long as it works as good as it does now then buy a new PC when he needs to.

Thanks for your input.
Mary

I am wanting to stay with Win 7 because that is the operating system that we use for editing video for my church's Television Ministry (with which I have been associated for 43 years). In our opinion, changing operating systems down at church is too much of a risk to take. Because I have the same video/audio editing software on my home computer, I want to stay with Win 7.

There is an excellent article at Ask-Leo on how I can "save the free upgrade so [I] can use it after the deadline has passed." see https://askleo.com/saving-free-windows-10-upgrade-later/

Now, I already have 2 bare 500G SATA hard drives which I use for BACKUP. To use them I purchased a Raygo USB 3.0 to SATA Converter for $12 such that when plugged to the converter, the SATA drive look like a removable drive to my computer.

I also have multiple MyPassport Ultra 3.0 USB drives which I have been using to cycle through successive "image" backups. These drives are small enough to fit into a bank safety deposit box.

To preserve my ability to take advantage of a free upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10 (otherwise expiring July 31st), I did the following:

Used Macrium Reflect to:
1. make a "clone" of my Win 7 hard drive, and
2. make an "image" of my Win 7 system.
These will be stored in two different locations and they are really backups of one another (just different formats)

I then downloaded MediaCreationTool.exe from Microsoft so that I could burn a Windows 10 ISO dvd.

This same tool can also be used to initiate the upgrade to Win 10 which I let it do.

Once Win 10 was running on my computer, I used Macrium Reflect to:
1. make a "clone" of my (now) Win 10 hard drive, and
2. make an "image" of my Win 10 system.
These will be stored in two different locations.

Then, I went to the Start menu and selected Settings. I clicked “Update & security” and selected “Recovery.” This took my machine back to Win 7.

If the reversion to Win 7 had failed, I would have simply used a Macrium Reflect Rescue Disk to take the "image" of Win 7 and restore it.

As I am often known to do, I want to encourage everyone to have a backup of your computer (as surely you are already making backups of your GPS devices). Hard drives fail; you can be infected with Ransomware; stupidity could rear its ugly head (as the great philosopher Pogo said: We have met the enemy and it is us); family members could inadvertently delete important stuff; etc.

You can get a free version of Macrium Reflect at http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

I know nothing about either cloning or image backup.
Which one is the easiest?
That being said which one is the best way to backup?

Mary,

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger on the difference. The problem is in the terminology. In reality they are the same.

Now, what format to store your image in is the question.

A clone generally is a bit for bit, track for track copy of one drive to another usually where both source and target are the same size, maybe not the same manufactur.

Images can be in .iso format or any one of several other formats.

I suspect most folk would think the clone is the easiest for numerous reasons.

If something happens to your running drive AND you have a CLONE of the drive AND the cloned drive has the same interposers (SATA, PATA, IDE...) as the drive that failed, it can be as simple as swapping the bad drive for the new drive, booting and your off and running.

The backups that are in .iso formats and the likes, unless there's some bootable software to exttract the .iso and transfer it to your target drive, can be a challenge.

Also, if the backup software used for creating .iso or other formats Is upgraded AND you fail to create new bootable restore software you might not be able to restore the data to a new drive.

There's no "BEST" way. It clearly comes to your comfort level using the two techniques.

While the clone (Drive to Drive imaging) is the most straight forward, the big advantage of the other techniques is they may create smaller incremental updates which makes the backup process shorter in overall time... But with incrementals, if you get one incremental that can't be read, usually all susequent incremental become unuseable and you can't recover beyond the incremental that failed.

I hope that helps paint a picture.

Cloning and image backup are the same thing. You don't need third party product to do image backup. Windows 7 built-in backup does image backup out of the box.

Which one is the best? It's end users choice. I only care about data that I generate: documents, photos, video, purchased music etc. I don't need no clone or image so I use SyncToy to sync user folders only. Don't care about backing up Windows or other software.

I can always rebuild a system from scratch since I have all the software setup media. In fact reinstalling OS is my preferred solution as opposed to restoring from a backup image. If you don't like to start from formatting HD and reinstalling OS and you think that is a waste of time then cloning/image backup is the right solution.

Oh, and there's one more thing to think about and that's in your drive in encrypted..

Cloning a DRIVE that's encrypted to another drive, then swaping the bad drive for the good drive MAY present some unanticipated results and may make the target drive that was created unbootable depending on how the encryption was performed.

I use the free version SyncBack (and have been using it for years) to mirror my user files and photos to an external hard drive weekly. So if I have the operating install disk and my programs disk that I installed the mirror of my user files is all I need to bake up.
If so I am doing OK.
Thanks.

Thanks so much for both your help and information. Just what I wanted to know.
Thanks again, Mary

Thanks for this information and per my above post I am making back ups of my user files. I am out to make sure I can find my install disk I made and put them where I can find them just in case I ever need them.

Mary, several good points have been made in response to your questions. As Barney commented, if the system drive is encrypted, clones or images might be problematic. As chewbacca noted, OSs from Win 7 forward have had the ability to create a "image" backup, even though that capability is not as robust as some packages like Macrium Reflect.

Let's think about exactly what a "clone" is. It is an exact copy of an internal hard drive. If one were to open up a computer and swap the system drive with a clone, then, after the swap, the computer would boot up as it had before the swap and the user would not notice any difference. Indeed, most Information Technology departments determine the range of applications that they will permit on PCs in the company and simply "clone" the system drive of their master computer for use in any PCs they build. Doing this significantly simplifies the IT department's ability to respond to questions from users - everything application wise is the same.

To clone a hard drive, one must be going to a drive that is the same size or larger. than the drive being cloned.

It is a more expensive proposition to make a "clone" because one must have on hand a bare hard drive (as opposed to an "image" which is just a copy -usually compressed to save space- of all of the data on the drive.) Bare internal hard drives are more expensive per gigabyte than, say, external USB drives.

An "image" may be thought of as just a copy of all of the files on a system drive with the additional feature of being able to be restored to a hard drive such that the computer will be able to boot from it. To accomplish this a "system recovery disk" must be available to boot the computer to which the "image" will be restored to a hard drive which, upon completion of restoration, will become a system drive again.

As you are already doing using SyncBack, an alternative to "clones" or "images" is some procedure to make backups of important files such as family photos and videos. The user decides what needs to be backed up. As such, the user is also responsible for making sure any changes to folders/files on the computer are reflected in the backup schema. Back when I was using a utility from PCMag called Instaback, I would often discover that new folders that I had created were not being backed up because I had failed to go into Instaback and tell it that I had created a new folder.

Note that an "image" of a drive captures everything on the drive. Third party applications make it easy to retrieve files - say you deleted one by mistake - from the images they make. You can do the same from an "image" made by Win 7, but it is not quite as straightforward.

You commented that you have " the operating install disk and my programs disk that I installed", so - with a backup of user files - you can rebuild your computer. I would say that most people do not have a disk from which to reinstall whatever Windows version they are using. Back when, a new computer came with a number of disks that could be used to restore windows. However, I cannot remember when any computer I bought for myself or a family member came with an Operating System disk set (or a manual, for that matter).

To be clear - I would only recommend making a "clone" to those people with a need to be back in business within minutes of recognizing some catastrophic hard drive failure. In the case of the Television Ministry I am involved in, were we to arrive some Sunday morning to a hard drive failure, we could open the computer, unhook the bad hard drive, replace it with the latest "clone" and be back up in minutes. If we were to restore from one of our "images", it would take over an hour.

I do recommend periodically making an "image" of your hard drive. With one, you have maximum flexibility for responding to a variety of failures, whether self-inflicted or not.

I like the old version of Ghost. It doesn't care about the size of destination HD. You can clone from/to any size HD as long as the source data isn't larger than the destination. I have no problem cloning 80GB HD to 10GB HD if the source data is less than 10GB. Cloning will not start if data doesn't fit in destination drive.

Did you get that backward? Shouldn't it be internal HD is cheaper per GB than external?

Some manufacturers give us an option to create recovery media but not everyone takes advantage of it. As for manuals, I don't know about others but I never read them.

No questions about that. I got clone images of most computers at the office too. As for home use, I'm fine with rebuilding the system from scratch.

Understand the following is only intended to discuss the actual drive you boot from (usually the C: drive), not any additional data storage drives in your system.

As a general statement your I agree with your comment .

There are programs that will let you create a "CLONE" where the SOURCE drive is larger than the TARGET drive as long as the actual DATA USED on the SOURCE DRIVE does not exceed the physical capacity of the TARGET HDD. For example, if you have a 1 TB SOURCE HDD (C: DRIVE) and there is only 250 GB of space actually used, using a program to "CLONE" the data to a 500 GB TARGET HDD isn't unreasonable. The biggest risk with this is when a program (not many of them these days fortunately) that knows "EXACTLY" where the beginning address a data file is supposed to be on the DISK as well as any extents that are address dependent and it's relocated to a new location (or address) on the DISK. So if the file existed beyond the 500 GB address on the 1TB HDD and it's relocated to someplace in the 300GB address range, then the program may not work properly.

This used to happen mostly with programs with large databases for expediency in accessing the data for either retrieval or updating. But there are still a few of them roaming around so make sure you know you don't have any of these before you make an "IMAGE" versus a clone on an HDD of the same physical size. Generally I agree an "IMAGE" will suffice.

This is true and false at the same time. There are four (4) things to consider when considering the costs involved.

1). The total monetary investment necessary over time.

2). The total time necessary to be actively "involved" with the backup process (again over time)

3). The reliability of the cloning / imaging techniques

4). The time it takes to perform a recovery should you need to take that dreadful step.

The costs involved are, the actual cost to acquire an additional HDD for a CLONE process and the cost of CD/DVD media to have a backup for restoration purposes. Additional costs are the time involved to complete cloning / imaging activity and the corrasponding restore activity.

If you have a fairly large internal disk (HDD), say (more than 500GB) AND your HDD is 450GB full, and you are going to create your images to DVD's say once a month, in time, the cost of the DVD's will likely exceed the cost of investing in an additional external HDD of the same or larger size for the purpose of cloning. (Notice I didn't say anything about SSD's, I'm strictly limiting the conversation to HDD's.)

Additionally, when creating image backups on DVD's you get the pleasure of "Baby Sitting" the process to insert "new blank media" as each DVD becomes full. Of course, if you can point the imaging software to an external HDD, then DVD cost is minimized. I've not used "IMAGING" software in many years so I don't know if that software has become sophisticated enough to put up warning messages if a media issue occurs during the creation process.

If you are relegated to backing up to CD/DVD, the backup time and recovery time are both elongated. And the recovery becomes conditional on having all the media and that it's still functional. Not a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

Yup..

Having a disk to reinstall your system is just the beginning. You also need to have the drivers for your system and they are frequently contained on the "RECOVERY" partition of an HDD delivered from the manufacture of the PC. Without the specific drivers for the PC you are rebuilding, while the operating system may work, it may be severely limited to it's total functionality. The drivers that tend to limit the use of a rebuilt system tend to revolve around telephone hardware, networking equipment, USB/Bluetooth drivers and in some cases display drivers. So if you are planning to just intend to back off your data and rebuild the system from scratch, make sure you have all the serial numbers necessary for products you might have downloaded. Then there's the aspect of having to configure all the software so, like at Burger King, you can have it "Your Way!

After you've rebuilt your system, then, in time, trying to acquire all the product patches may become more of an issue. Even if all the patches are available, having your system need to download all those fixes and affect them via the reboots can take more than a little time. I think the last time I had to do this it took me some 4 days (at least 40 hrs) of constant work to get my system back to normal, not to mention any emails, websites or other things I might have lost along the way.

Throughout this entire discussion there's nothing mentioned about drives that are in some RAID configuration. While putting your system HDD into a RAID configuration might expedite the performance of your overall system, trying to rebuild your system drive configuration may not be achievable and similar comments can be said for drives that are encrypted!

Jgermann,

Here's where we're going to have to agree to disagree.

The cost of HDD's is so cheap these days, not to clone your SYSTEM BOOT DRIVE seems just to risky and time consuming for me.

For the "C:" drive I always create a real clone then about once a month I re-clone the same drive over and over. It takes some time so I start it when I go to the movies, or out to dinner or to bed. Makes a time consuming process to get up and running something that's achievable within about an hour. This way, if there's a "RECOVERY" process the manufacture provided I have it available should I ever need it. If there's a data file I need, I can quickly hook the drive up, access it as "Z:" and copy the necessary files. If my system won't boot, swap the drives and I've only lost the data I've not captured via the clone process. In the old days, after I'd build a system for someone I'd include system image files for recovery. Today, I include a cloned HDD and tell them to re-clone the drive about once a month.

For me, all my data is on separate HDD's, not the "C" drive proper. I can't even begin to imagine trying to back up my system with 12 TB's of space on it. I'm in the throws of building a significant NAS where all the drives will be in a RAID 5 configuration.

Two things that haven't been discussed at all. If you have your system in any RAID configuration, any form of cloning or recovery technique seems to become suspect.

The other is what to do to the drive that's gone south. You likely can't hook the drive up and securely remove the data. So what's to do?

The government and many businesses put them into crushers, grinders, and emulsifiers to make the data on the drive(s) unrecoverable.

I don't have any of those devices available to me. But putting a drive into a vice and using a power saw to saw the drive completely into at least 2 pieces and putting disposing of the pieces at separate times makes it damn near impossible to extract any usable data off of it.

Whew,....

How did you manage to lose websites? Do you mean bookmarks/favorites? Aren't they in the backup set? I recently had an HD crash earlier this year. Nothing is lost. I agree with the length of time to rebuild the system up to date with current patches and 4 days doesn't sound like an exaggeration.

A hammer and a screwdriver will do the job. I disassembled 10 dead HDs last week. I removed the disk platters. Then I hammered the circuit boards on all 10 HDs (not necessary but I did it anyway) and trashed them. I plan to drill holes into the disk platters later or just use them as Christmas ornaments. It may not up to government standard but that should be fine.

My brain is spinning. I am going to have to read this several times to take it all in.

It is priceless information. Thanks to all of you.

Now for my first questions I have after reading all your post twice:

1.
I have a 1TB HD in my Laptop.
I have a 4TB External HD attached to my Laptop with a lot less than 1 TB of backups. (I have two main folders, Documents and Pictures, and all of these have sub folders with all my work and photos on my Laptop) I Mirror the Document and Picture folders and have include sub folders marked along with add any new folders marked.

That being said can I clone or image (whichever i decided, after reading in full several more times) the HD of my Laptop to my attached External HD with my backups already on it? Or do I need to buy a separate HD and if so if it is an internal HD can I backup to it with only a usb cord?

2.
My second question is if I can't find my recovery disk for my Windows 10 Laptop and make a recovery disk now will it have all the folders of my work I have now or will it be just a recovery disk for my operating system?
I did find my Vista when I restored my Vista PC after the Windows 10 insider build but so far I have't found my recovery for my Laptop, I think I might not have made one when I first received my Laptop

Afterthought
""Just had another idea, can I make a copy of Windows 10 like I made for my Netbook on a USB disk and install Windows 10 from that if I were to have a problem with my Windows 10 Laptop and then put the copies of my mirrored files back on it?""

Mary,

I read your querry as;

x1- Your Laptop has two Directories you use they are:
- Documents
- Pictures

x2 - You back these directories off to your 4 TB HDD periodically.

Here's the responses

1) If you perform a real "physical clone" of the 1TB drive in your LAPTOP to your 4TB external HDD, the clone will destroy all data on your 4TB HDD and replace any existing data on the 4TB drive with the data found on your 1TB HDD drive. On top of this, should you loose your drive in your LAPTOP, you might not be able to clone back your system.

I'm presuming you have something that you use to back up the data your truly interested in, likly containd within the Documents and Pictures directories. I'm presuming your existing backup process creates full images of your two directories with a prefixed date and time on each backup entry, so your backup directory for pictures would look somethig like:

Pictures
- yyyy-mm-yy HH_MM_SS Pictures
and all the subdirectories under this backup

and every time you run your backup it creates a new directory entry that's in the form of
- yyyy-mm-yy HH_MM_SS Pictures

This way, should you unintentionally delete / edit / photoshop a file from any specific date; and that file is stored and subsetuently backed up; you can recover the origional file from a prior date.

I would continue to use the 4 TB drive as a chronoligical backup device. I woudln't likely use it as a device to create images of my system and I certainly wouldn't use it as a drive to perform a "PHYSICAL CLONE" of the laptops HDD... EVER!

While it's a simple but scary question, the reponse is it's completely dependent upon the manufacture of the LAPTOP. Each one seems to do something slightly different. With that, it's difficult to speculate what any individual proces to build a "recovery disk" might actually contain after it's built.

It's likely any drivers that might have been on your laptop would have been for the "VISTA" operating system and not the "Window's 10" system. When Windows 10 was installed (presuming it was an upgrade) it might have found the VISTA drivers and replaced them with appropriate Windows 10 drivers. But that again at best would be speculation.

I just upgraded a Windows 8.1 system to Windows 10 with someone I know. They didn't have the recovery disks for thier LAPTOP and when the WIN 10 system was installed,. I encouraged them to get a second HDD and clone it prior their upgrade since they didn't have the recovery disks as a "just in case". They elected to continue without creating a clone so the system could be reverted should something catastrophic occur. They continued on and formatted the entire LAPTOP HDD, so whatever RECOVERY directory was there prior the upgrade, it was missing afterwards.

That being said, the system took several hours to install, and for the limited time I used the laptop; for the most part it seems to work without issues, so he took the machine home and I've not heard anything about it's status since. (Thank Goodness)

In your case, from your description, if it were me, I'd get a 1 TB Samsung SSD HDD replacement that looks like one of these:

SAMSUNG 850 PRO 2.5" 1TB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7KE1T0BW

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147...

or

SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 1TB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E1T0B/AM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147...

Either will work adaquately for you.

Then I'd do the following:

1) Physically "Clone" the "HDD" in the LAPTOP to the SSD.
2) Power off the LAPTOP
3) Remove the Battery from the LAPTOP
4) Remove the appropriate covers on the LAPTOP
5) SWAP the LAPTOP's HDD with the SSD.
6) Re-install the approprite covers on the LAPTOP
7) Re-install the Battery
8) install the AC power to the LAPTOP
9) Boot the LAPTOP

Enjoy the performance boost;

Whenever you make an update to your LAPTOP; lots of new software and the such; CLONE the SSD to the HDD.

I have the HDD for my laptop in an anti-stat bag in my jewlery box on my dresser.

I hope this helps. BTW, my LAPTOP used to take say 8-10 mins to finish loading. It's now complete in some 12 seconds after getting beyond post.

I just said screw it, and installed Linux Mint 17.3 today on one of my SSD's.

I'll keep Win-blows on the other 850 EVO if I need to... do something else.

I'm tired of the spying, data collection, and slowing internet.

I'd use a hammer (coconut rum, peach schnapps and 7-Up soda) and screwdriver (Vodka and Orange Juice) too!

MS still continues to push KB3035583 onto computers without Win 10.

Even if you have KB3035583 "Hidden" in the Windows Update application, MS will override it and install it if you miss it. I just had it sneak onto my machine last Tuesday.

They sure do want everyone to upgrade. At least you can now decline the upgrade, without it continually popping up. But the icon still will remain in the systray.

Sorry to say I only mirror the two directories. The files on the external HD are just like the ones on my internal HD. Same name, same everything, etc. .jpg, .docx.

Your reason about doing them with the date is a good idea, thanks.

---------------------------
Also, I didn't make myself clear. My Laptop came new with Windows 10 installed. I was just making a statement about another PC I have that is Vista and I tried to do the insider build but the Vista PC was too old and I did find the recovery disk I made years ago, but I can't find the recovery disk for new Windows 10 Laptop that is fairly new to have just in case I need them.

----------------------------
I have 4 PC.

(1) Netbook - original Windows 7 - I upgraded to Windows 10 and it runs so much faster (only use for Davis weather station)

(1) Vista PC - I did the windows insider upgraded but it didn't work so I restored to original Vista with the recovery disc I made years ago and it runs so much better now. (only used for grand kids games)

(1) Windows 7 - Used for holding photos, my husbands surfing, and grand kids games. It has an external HD with all the photos mirrored to it. So far works ok, slowed down for a while until I uninstalled all the Windows 10 preparation updates.

(1) Windows 10 Laptop. I now use this for my day to day work. Everything is on it, even starting to keep new photos on it. This was bought a few months ago with Windows 10 on it and it boots up in just a few seconds. So far great. But, I have the fear of something happening and worry that I might need to restore it and was looking for a way to make sure I have everything ready just in case. I keep getting this reminder that I need to make restoring disc so that tells me why I can't find them, I haven't done them.

All your information is great and is what I was looking for.
Thanks

Just wondering, can you use Chrome and link with your phone with Linux?

Can I save the restore files (and use them later if needed) on a USB drive and not disc.??

Mary, when you commenting about starting to keep new photos on the Win 10 laptop and also being fearful that something [terrible] might happen, and further that the grandkids used at least some of your computers, it caused me to want to discuss another piece of the backup puzzle.

Where should one should keep backups?

In your case, you say that the backup of your documents and photos is on an external 4TB drive (which I am assuming is a USB drive).

Think about this, if you had a house fire near your computer, it is likely that both the computer and the USB drive would be destroyed because of their proximity. That breaks a cardinal rule that data and the backup of that data should not be in the same location. Ideally, the data and the backup of that data should be separated by miles, so that some disaster will not destroy both.

An alternative that I chosen is to purchase a fireproof safe. Not only do I use this safe to store important documents - like birth certificates, marriage certificate, passports, titles to assets, etc. - I use it to store USB drives containing "clones" and "images" of my computers.

You can buy a fireproof safe that will hold some 3 cu. ft. for around $300.

I strongly recommend that everyone consider this option.

Yes - download Chrome for Linux and it works just like Chrome for Windows, including sync with Android phones for Google calendar, contacts, and Gmail.

The glaring omission is Evernote! It is not available for Linux and will not be, according to principals of the company. There are workarounds but they are not as good as Evernote for Windows or Mac. Evernote also syncs with your phone and tablet.

dobs108

To Buy "Office". Could not find a simple way to block spam thanks to MS Windows 10 e-mail. They want you to hit multiple buttons and type address to block spam or buy MS Office. I now have a spam 2 click to filter Junk Mail!!!

Only seven days left! I'm sure Microsoft's servers are getting busier by the hour as the end of the free upgrade offer grows closer...