Quote:
Originally Posted by cybmole
I've considered that, in fact I used to have the dropbox folder on an external drive, but then I think those drives can't ever sleep, as dropbox will keep checking for syncs-to-do ?
Actually windows system image has to snapshot the whole physical drive, you can't image only a partition. So to implement your idea needs 2 or more physical drives.
For all data sets that would be a pain to have to replace, I use free file sync to maintain backup copies on a secondary drive anyway. My C drive is 4 + years old now so I keep thinking I ought to swap it out anyway, but it's such a hassle
FWIW I've send a query to dropbox help, asking how they handle synching after a restore from system image.. I guess similar questions would arise for users of acronis or other whole disc backup solutions
I do also have the same dropbox account on a 2nd PC & when I switch that on I see it downloading any recent calibre library changes to the dropbox folder on that PC, so I know that sync works well across 2 PCs. If I had a primary drive failure, I think I'd go to that other PC & take a full backup of my dropbox folder on there, before bringing the 1st one back online, then if stuff gets wrongly synced , I'd know that i can fix it.
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cybmole - My externals sleep, although they're normally off when I don't want them.
I believe the EaseUS Partition Master product will image partitions - I've not used it.
The problem with image backups is that you're backing up the accumulated detritus since you last did a fresh Windows install. For that reason I've given up on taking image copies, I think I only restored from an image once to good effect, on several occasions I've reinstalled from image only to find that 'the problem' I'm trying to fix predates the oldest image.
There's a 'feature' for Windows Vista/7/8 called
in-place upgrade install, essentially it gives you a pristine Windows install without the need to reinstall applications. You might have to fix a few things like reinstall odd drivers (eg I have an ASUS BT dongle), do a bit of repair work in browsers and reapply OS tweaks, but other than that everything remains as was.
It takes longer but its a nice warm feeling to have a pristine Windows.
BR