Not just an OS-forum question: How do you choose to backup a dual-boot configuration?

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm still more comfortable routinely for working in Win 7, but I'm coming up to speed with Win 10. I've got it configured with Classic Shell, so I'm not poking around trying to find the essential features that are more easily accessible in Win 7.

I had initially set up my sig-6700K system to back up nightly to our WHS-2011, with the Skylake defaulted to Win 7. Then, to my chagrin, I discovered there is a problem with a Z170 system restoring bare-metal from the server with the server-created USB key, and it's documented in other sites and forums. I'm choosing to back up only folder-specific data to the server for now, and chose to backup locally using Windows 7 backup features.

But now I have misgivings of doing the backup in Windows 7, when I usually let the machine default to the Win 7 boot. It is scheduled weekly for Sunday backup, and I'd like to resolve my uncertainties before Sunday, although it's not important -- howsoever I reconfigure it, I can wipe the backup disk and start over.

The backup disk is a 2.5" 1TB HDD in an ICYDOCK hot-swap front-panel device. Not essential to explain that.

But what is the recommended approach to backing up a dual-boot OS-system-disk?

 

[Elixer]

On my dual/tri systems, I just mirror/clone (to a file) the image of the bootsectors & all the partitions I need for that OS I want to back up.

 

[pcgeek11]

I do the same, Image the entire disk to file.

 

[XavierMace]

I don't put any data worth saying on my desktop.

 

[VirtualLarry]

All this talk of backing up (and JC's other thread about a BSOD), got me in the mood to download M.R. and image one of my DeskMini units to my NAS. Works fairly well, if a bit slow.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, as I think I said (gettin' old!) -- the entire household was backed up nightly to a WHS2011 server. Never missed a lick. Systems would be asleep or in hibernation, and they would dutifully wake up between midnight and 6AM, and complete their backups to the server. Then, they go back to sleep, and enter hibernation.

Some things, like my document archive of PDFs (taxes going back to 1999!!), are stored directly on the server and duplicated across the drivepool. They get backed up to a server local disk every couple weeks.

But Win10 and dual-boot borked my backup for the Skylake system. Or -- it would show a successful backup, but -- as others complained on other sites and forums -- you couldn't do a bare-metal restore successfully with the USB flash drive created on the server. [I must have explained all this stuff in my original post . . . gettin' old . . ]

So rather than wait until I get my 2012 R2 Essentials box up and running, I need some backup assurance for the Skylake, and it must be a local option.

When I finally figured out how to resize partitions/volumes on my NVMe with Macrium, it required making an image. It looks like an option more promising than just "Windows backup." It's more promising, because I can restore a multi-boot disk, and it doesn't bork one or the other OS installations.

Somehow, I just suspect that I should do these backups in the more recent Win10 OS. Maybe it doesn't matter. Does anyone know that for a fact? If I still work more with Win 7, even scheduling a backup in Win10 means I have to prepare for it by booting to Win 10 on the designated day . . .

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't do "Image Backups" inside Windows. Just from past experience, that seems like a Bad Idea. I made a Macrium Reflect boot USB stick, and I boot off of that, and access my NAS that way. It uses WinPE, based on Windows 10.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I don't do "Image Backups" inside Windows. Just from past experience, that seems like a Bad Idea. I made a Macrium Reflect boot USB stick, and I boot off of that, and access my NAS that way. It uses WinPE, based on Windows 10.

I might have made a USB stick, but I burned the ISO to DVD [probably CD would have been perfectly fine.] I wouldn't know at this point whether the WinPE self-bootable allows you to do differential or incremental backups -- which are going to save you a lot of time after an initial full backup.

Ordinarily, I'd rather use the Windows native Backup and Restore feature -- the KISS principle, supplementing the 6P principle of "proper planning prevents piss-poor performance." But -- again -- which Win version in a dual-boot system? Certainly there's Acronis, Macrium, and even EaseUS has "ToDo" backup. For the latter, they should've folded into their Partition Master program.