Considering New Backup Options

[photoguy]

Making a bootable clone is a great idea and something I recommend for people on Macs (to do in addition to time-machine). With Superduper and CCC this is trivial.

On my old computer I had it setup (with CCC) to automatically mirror the boot drive to a different hard disk in my MP. So even if my main disk went down, I could be running again with a simple restart.

Is there a simple, free (and easy) tool to do this with windows 8.1 (asking for my father-in-law's computer)? or is ERD50 right that you need to reinstall from the backup?

 

[rbmrtn]

Maybe overlaping two concepts, cloning versus imaging. A clone is a duplicate of your existing HD onto another HD. You would swap out the HDs in the event of a failure. An image is a copy of the HD written to a file. In the event of a failure you would use software to write the image onto a new HD ( reinstalling )

Here's a link to some tools to look at, Five free and reliable cloning tools - TechRepublic, there are others like Acronis true image, easeus todo backup.

Howto article on cloning here, How to Clone a Hard Drive | PCMag.com

 

[ERD50]

Maybe overlaping two concepts, cloning versus imaging. A clone is a duplicate of your existing HD onto another HD. You would swap out the HDs in the event of a failure. An image is a copy of the HD written to a file. In the event of a failure you would use software to write the image onto a new HD ( reinstalling )

Here's a link to some tools to look at, Five free and reliable cloning tools - TechRepublic, there are others like Acronis true image, easeus todo backup.

Howto article on cloning here, How to Clone a Hard Drive | PCMag.com

Yes, cloning is what I'm referring to on the Mac. And as I mentioned, the beauty is that you can clone to an external drive, then boot directly from that clone - just hold the "option" key at boot time, and all the boot-able systems will appear, and you choose what you want. Super EZ to test it out after you think you cloned it. And if you have not tested it, I do not consider it 'cloned'. And if the internal drive crashes, you can be up and running from that clone in minutes, with no fuss/muss. Saved my butt once way back on OS-8 ('Classic'), I think it was. I ran for a week or two, booting from my ZIP drive (remember those?), until I had time to re-install the crashed system on the internal HD.

AFAIK, it takes a 'pro' version in Windows to be able to boot from that clone as an external drive. And if you have to swap drives to test it, well that's a fair amount of trouble.

I know I can clone my Linux system, but AFAIK, it is not easy to boot from that clone w/o some playing around (and/or removing the internal drive). The external clone will have UUIDs that match the internal drive, and that will conflict. I think I once successfully managed to change the UUIDs on the clone, and get all the internal references updated to match, but it was a lot of work and confusing (for me). And things like Remastersys don't seem to handle a full system, with all the installs and config files (which I have on a separate /home partition). I could clone w/o my data, and merge that later, no sweat. But for me, the purpose of the clone is to have all my system changes and updates. Without that, a clean install is probably less trouble.

-ERD50

 

[Katsmeow]

Got it. I think what I am going to want to do is just make a copy of data and put it on One drive and then periodically update it.

 

[rbmrtn]

AFAIK, it takes a 'pro' version in Windows to be able to boot from that clone as an external drive. And if you have to swap drives to test it, well that's a fair amount of trouble.


-ERD50

The boot function is done by the BIOS and bootloader, so any version of windows can boot from a supported hardware device. On many PCs F12 will bring up the boot menu during BIOS load and it allows the boot device to be specified ( sounds similar to Mac "options" button) so that is done before windows starts.

I don't think superduper is doing anything with the boot portion. It's simply cloning the drive. It appears maybe apple boot loader is detecting any bootable device on the fly and allowing it the boot menu ? ( I don't have a mac to investigate ) maybe superduper is modifying the bootloader ?

It seems maybe an extra step in windows and linux is that you need to modify the bootloader configuration but it's same concept. I'm not familiar enough with Mac to know what it doing with the loader.

And yes I still have several zip drives, ditto parallel port tape drives, a DAT drive and closet full of other junk ( even a couple of XT motherboards )

And I think the UUID scheme is more confusing than the device id, there are places where it is useful and other where it is more trouble. Fix one thing... break something else.

 

[ERD50]

The boot function is done by the BIOS and bootloader, so any version of windows can boot from a supported hardware device. On many PCs F12 will bring up the boot menu during BIOS load and it allows the boot device to be specified ...

OK, I recalled references to needing 'pro' or 'enterprise' versions to do that, but I don't work much in Windows, so I could be off on that.

I really thought it was an anti-piracy thing, that each installation got 'locked' to some hardware?

I don't think superduper is doing anything with the boot portion. It's simply cloning the drive. It appears maybe apple boot loader is detecting any bootable device on the fly and allowing it the boot menu ?

I'm not sure how they do it, but it sure seems to be on the fly - I also don't think SuperDuper! does any kind of boot loader manipulation, and whatever they do, I wish Ubuntu would do it the same way!

-ERD50

 

[photoguy]

rbmrtn - thanks for the links to cloning programs.

OK, I recalled references to needing 'pro' or 'enterprise' versions to do that, but I don't work much in Windows, so I could be off on that.

I found a detailed page that describes exactly what I would like to do (clone to an external USB drive and then be able to boot from that USB drive):

Windows 8: Clone it and run it from an USB drive

It doesn't mention anything about a pro version of windows being required but the process appears *very* complicated.

I love the warning: "There are some dangerous modifications of the computer system, that may destroy (not only) your Windows installation and data, if you make an error."

Edit: I was reading through the explanations column and it says "Windows is not designed to boot from USB drives. (Only Windows 8 Enterprise has this feature Windows To Go". I think this means if you have Win8 enterprise, it would be easy -- otherwise you have to use the detailed process.

 

[rbmrtn]

I found a detailed page that describes exactly what I would like to do (clone to an external USB drive and then be able to boot from that USB drive):

Windows 8: Clone it and run it from an USB drive

It doesn't mention anything about a pro version of windows being required but the process appears *very* complicated.

I love the warning: "There are some dangerous modifications of the computer system, that may destroy (not only) your Windows installation and data, if you make an error."

Yea, that seems overly complicated. Here is better one that is simple, How to Run a Portable Version of Windows from a USB Drive. It makes use of a tool called WintoUSB.

The warnings are standard when editing the registry.

 

[tulak]

Reading through this thread makes me appreciate time machine on the Mac. I was a long time MS person (in a prior life I worked on Windows) and I was always having to tweak stuff to make it work right.

I bought a Mac mini a few years ago thinking I might do some iOS development and over time, it's become our primary computer. This happened because the apps that ship in MacOS are actually decent and not an after thought as they are with Windows. For example, I had a bunch of home videos to import and couldn't make it work with my camera and Windows. In order to make it work, I'd have to download a 3rd party app which didn't export to mpeg4. With the Mac, I plugged in the camera and was immediately importing video.

And in the scope of this thread, there's time machine, which gives me a local backup by plugging in an external drive. I also periodically create an encrypted disk image with my documents that I can backup to the cloud. All built in to the OS.

I guess as I get older, I just want stuff to work with as little hassle as possible.