When disaster strikes...

[JSWolf]

I've looked at a number of Windows backup programs and I do not want to pay a subscription. A one time cost sure. But no subscription.

[Karellen]

I've been using this for the last 10 years...
https://www.tgrmn.com/

Same developer that created Bulk Rename Utility

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I've been using this for the last 10 years...
https://www.tgrmn.com/

Same developer that created Bulk Rename Utility

Does this allow you to restore Windows?

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does this allow you to restore Windows?

Restore the operating system?
No idea, never checked, never even crossed my mind that I would need that.
But I will say no, as I have never seen such a setting in the software.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Restore the operating system?
No idea, never checked, never even crossed my mind that I would need that.
But I will say no, as I have never seen such a setting in the software.

One very good reason to want to restore the OS is to move to another drive in the computer.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by haertig

I'm already starting to rethink my idea stated a few posts back of keeping my "write once" stuff copied to thumbdrives stored in a Safe Deposit Box. Maybe that idea should be updated to store that data on an HDD rather than flash memory.

Both SSDs and HDDs have their own problems. Yes, bits can go bad in SSDs, but HDDs have moving parts, which can cause you to lose the whole thing. I just finished running backups, and when trying to generate a checksum of an HDD image I just wrote, I got an I/O error, suggesting the backup HDD that I bought less than a year ago has already failed. Now I need to replace it and image my system again.

There's always a risk that a backup HDD won't spin up after it's been sitting for a long time. I have another backup HDD that throws tons of errors if I try to use it, even though it technically still (mostly) spins up. For off-site storage I would probably prefer optical media, of which the M-disc is the most reliable, since the data is etched into a carbon layer that doesn't degrade the way the dye in normal CD/DVD/BD-R sometimes does, but even that isn't foolproof, since the glue that holds the plastic and carbon layers together will eventually fail. The main rule to follow with data is to have as many copies as possible.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One very good reason to want to restore the OS is to move to another drive in the computer.

Restoring an image of Windows to a new drive that is the same size or larger is generally an easy task. But you have to restore it to the SAME partition for things to go easily. Say your original Windows was installed on the first partition of a drive, now you are replacing that with a same or larger drive but you want to restore Windows to the second partition. Some backup/restore programs are smart enough to automatically make the tweaks needed. But most are not. Or at least they were not back in the Windows 2000 days. I did such a restore once and of course it did not work even though the backup software said it would. I had to do a lot of research and some low level manual editing at raw disk level to make it work. I did that restore - once - to see if I could. I succeeded. But it was difficult even for a computer guru, which I was at the time. You've got to really learn the low level Windows boot process, much lower level than many people want to dive.

Things may be different now. As I said, this was back in the (I think) Windows 2000 days. That was the time when I finally abandoned Windows for good. I had been a Unix geek pretty much from the very beginning of Unix. And I started using Linux when that came pout too. But back in those days I still held onto Windows computers and was not 100% *nix. Now I am 100% *nix, and have been for two+ decades. Nowadays I just pull a complete HDD out of a Linux box and plug it into a different computer with completely different hardware and it boots just fine. Try that with Windows! Ha!

Anyway, I'm not really trying to bash Windows. If people want to use it, that's fine. I was originally just trying to point out things that can really screw the pooch when you backup/restore Windows to non identical computers. Like when your old computer burned itself up and you had to buy a new one. Beware. Even a clean backup without any corruption may not work for some of the reasons I mentioned above. That's why image backups of Windows should NOT be your only backups. There's a pretty good chance that your image backup will be worthless when you really need it. You need to have file-based backups as well. With file-based backups you will have to re-install the Windows OS from scratch, then copy over all your important files from the backup. With an image backup, you are attempting to restore everything in one fell swoop - your files AND the operating system. And that's when you often find out how screwed you are. You better have a file-based backup to recover from your failed recovery attempt with an image backup. It's not so much of an issue restoring to an identical computer. But many times you are not doing that.

[Aleron Ives]

If you use Linux to make your Windows system image, you can mount the image and extract files from it, so individual files are preserved even if restoring the whole image won't work.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by haertig

Also critical to me is to not have just an "image" backup. Where you have to restore the whole thing. When you only want to restore a single file or two.

The "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" in Control Panel (for both Windows 10 and Windows 11) creates an image backup that can be restored to a completely blank drive (as long as you have a Windows boot disk to perform the restore).

But, if you want to restore individual files, just browse to the backup location, right click on the .VHDX file and select "Mount". It will mount the image as a drive, and you can then find the files you want to restore. It's the best of both worlds.

[drofgnal]

I don't think I've ever had a hard drive fail. I even ran over my laptop once in a rental car parking lot and everything except the monitor still worked. I connected to an external monitor and it booted right up.

Modern hard drives are pretty robust. You can order them and they get shipped all over and still work. Shipping can have some pretty high shock and vibration loads. I had someone ship me pictures on a hard drive. I'm sure UPS just tossed it on the front porch, worked fine.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I don't think I've ever had a hard drive fail. I even ran over my laptop once in a rental car parking lot and everything except the monitor still worked. I connected to an external monitor and it booted right up.

Modern hard drives are pretty robust. You can order them and they get shipped all over and still work. Shipping can have some pretty high shock and vibration loads. I had someone ship me pictures on a hard drive. I'm sure UPS just tossed it on the front porch, worked fine.

A Spinning drive is more vulnerable to shock.
Back in the XP days, I had a 5.25 drive in a desktop caddy, suddenly lose speed control and start walking around on my desk due to vibration before I could shut it down.
At work, we had a shipment of computers arrive late because of icy weather enroute, so we unpacked and powered them up as fast as we could. Almost 50% of the drives fail within the first hours. Rule of thumb: 1 hr at room temp for each 5 degrees below normal use before powering on. Don't leave your Laptop in the trunk overnight in cold climates

[Quoth]

Yes, we set up a load of PCs in a very cold warehouse once. 1993 or 1994 so IDE. Later they all had to be reformatted.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by theducks

Don't leave your Laptop in the trunk overnight in cold climates

I'm not disputing your good advice.

Years ago I used to run a desktop in my car. Often it was significantly below freezing. If the disk spun up, it worked fine. If it refused to spin up you had to wait until it warmed up a bit. I never had a problem with it. Don't try this at home.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by sydmalicious

Do you have any nightmarish scenarios you've had to deal with, overcome, or recover from?

Two days ago I made my own nightmare situation. Luckily it was only a brief nightmare. But when you realize you just did something incredibly stupid, that initial stab of panic goes deep.

After over 45 years of administering and using Unix and Linux computers, I finally got around to deleting a partition table that I didn't mean to delete. Of course it was my boot drive, making things even more fun!

Even having been a sysadmin for the majority of my life, I still did have a brief panic attack once I realized what I had done. Thoughts of a bare metal recovery from backups were dancing through my head. But I stopped doing everything, didn't look at the computer, didn't touch the keyboard, and went upstairs to make myself a cup of coffee. By the time I had done that my brain had cleared, the panic had subsided, and I knew just what I had to do. I had my partition table back in under two minutes and the computer never realized it was knocking on death's door.

But that initial scare was ... a nightmare!

[Quoth]

When a removable drive you plugged in has a similar layout and size to main boot drive...