Backup entire system image for dummies?

[Compman55]

My dad can just squeak out and email and get thru craigslist. Backups for him would be too complicated. Is there any backup programs out there that are stupid simple? Like plug in the hard drive and press a button?

 

[Charlie98]

Is there any chance you can just use an external USB powered backup drive, and install and setup Acronis (or similar) for automatic backup? If he's not near you, you could use TeamViewer to set it up for him (I just did that for my mom... )

 

[Kaido]

Yeah, set him up remotely with Macrium. You can schedule it to do nightly incrementals to a USB drive once the master image has been made.

 

[John Connor]

There are online backup services. Carbonite is one that I know of. I don't use those though so I have no idea how good they are.

 

[StarTech15]

I've used IDrive to perform full system backups. They offer disk image backup that replicates your system to a secondary location. That means all your programs, settings, files, everything. So you can easily restore your system with the same structure as before.

 

[Berryracer]

Macrium Reflect, the best there is

 

[Ketchup]

Another option would be using Windows Backup. Use it once to make the image, then have him plug in a drive for weekly backups.

For example, set it up for him, set it to run every Saturday night into Sunday morning (or whatever you choose) and just tell him to have the backup drive plugged in the night before the backup.

 

[bruceb]

I would suggest you go the automatic backup route as others have said. Set it to run either once a week or once a month. I would also have a program run backups of his data files, like his My Documents, etc (or wherever his important files are) once a week. As to how to restore to an Image, if he is not computer savvy, then either you would need to do it or if the image is stored remotely, you could push it out to his system, like IT Admins do in an office environment.

 

[xSauronx]

do you really need a system image backup? id rely on the restore partition and getting all his documents synced to a backup or cloud service. i mean, an image is handy if there is a lot of setup to be done when something goes awry but just making sure all his documents/pics are backed up would probably be good enough. i use crashplan for backups and onedrive for syncing

 

[GrumpyMan]

Macrium Reflect, the best there is

I agree, have been using it for years and it has never let me down and saved my ass a few times too. :thumbsup:

 

[thespyder]

I recently purchased a 2TB Seagate drive with intent to backup my two PCS. Both are running Win7 and the backup failed on both cases.

The one is a 32bit image and I understand that for hard drives 2TB and larger that the Windows utility will fail. However, my primary is a 64bit Win7 image and that failed as well. In both cases I was using the Windows Backup utility.

My question is will Acronis 'True image' work to back up both PCs onto the same 2TB drive? Will I have conflicts with two backups of different types on the same backup drive?

 

[Ketchup]

I recently purchased a 2TB Seagate drive with intent to backup my two PCS. Both are running Win7 and the backup failed on both cases.

The one is a 32bit image and I understand that for hard drives 2TB and larger that the Windows utility will fail. However, my primary is a 64bit Win7 image and that failed as well. In both cases I was using the Windows Backup utility.

My question is will Acronis 'True image' work to back up both PCs onto the same 2TB drive? Will I have conflicts with two backups of different types on the same backup drive?

I would suggest you start your own thread, as this is your issue, not the OP's. You also should tell what part ot failed at and what the message was.

 

[thespyder]

Thanks for the feedback. I was figuring since the issues were similar that people might chime in. However, I was able to get several opinions elsewhere.

 

[Compman55]

Another add on, the program I choose needs to not go obsolete. Let me explain, I bought norton ghost for WinXP SP1. It worked awsome and never let me down. The live update was discontinued and when they came out with SP3 it would no longer work.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

If you want to use the restore partition you can, but for those who really customize their machines, a system image could save a LOT of time!

do you really need a system image backup? id rely on the restore partition and getting all his documents synced to a backup or cloud service. i mean, an image is handy if there is a lot of setup to be done when something goes awry but just making sure all his documents/pics are backed up would probably be good enough. i use crashplan for backups and onedrive for syncing