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Old 01-09-2021, 08:49 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by albireo13 View Post
Not sure how effective an image would be.
If my laptop died in a year or so, I might likely be replacing it with a different model.
Same OS .... WIN10 but, HW configuration would be different.

Would the image be bootable in a different laptop?
If the hardware is different the drivers will not work. If it did work you would lose Win 10 license activation since it checks the hardware.
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Old 01-09-2021, 09:12 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by albireo13 View Post
Not sure how effective an image would be.
If my laptop died in a year or so, I might likely be replacing it with a different model.
Same OS .... WIN10 but, HW configuration would be different.

Would the image be bootable in a different laptop?
I'll try to answer the how effective an image would be part ...

On my Win computer, I use Macrium Reflect to have scheduled backups done daily as well as additional manual backups (once a month of my data and once a quarter of the system).

I say during the course of a year, I find myself have to restore from a backup about 10 times, give or take. Usually when something I've done (like a setting or testing a program) that makes the system act strange or an update. Easier to just restore from a recent backup than try to figure out what happened and try to undo.

Plus, knowing I have a good image, should I get hit with ransomware, I can just restore back to a time before the hit instead of having the computer locked up.

For me, backing up isn't about replacing a computer but about recovering should something happen to my data (which I can't afford to lose) or system (which would be a pain to reinstall and set up).
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Old 01-09-2021, 09:39 AM   #23
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Clonezilla is OS independent. It boots into temporary live Linux and will back up any HD with any OS. The image is not bootable and will not conflict with anything. It must be restored to be usable.
Thanks for that info. For me, that is not ideal - if I have to restore to use the image, it's pretty hard to test that image. That means wiping out my original, just to test it right? So if the image is hosed up (or more likely, I screw up something), I'm now dead in the water.

That's why I'd like to be able to create the image, and re-boot into it w/o changing anything on my system, other than pointing to it.

In Linux, the GRUB boot loader (GRand Unified Boot-loader) seems needlessly complex and inflexible (or I just don't understand/appreciate it), as it doesn't allow you to boot from that image (because the UUIDs are also cloned, so create a conflict), and updating it seems ticky and can leave you with an unbootable system until you fix it with a LIVE CD/USB. I've read about the ways to change the UUID on the clone, but I think I only got it to work once, and it was pretty involved.

I've resolved myself too just backing up the data. Fortunately, reinstalling Linux is pretty painless, and I've documented my apps/set up (but are out of date now!). And I haven't had a need to reinstall the system anyhow, so it hasn't mattered (yet!).


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Originally Posted by Unpaintedhuffhines View Post
most of these solutions seem very complicated (to me at least). I use Carbonite for all of my computers. I set it up and then forget it. Once a week (or maybe it's once a month) I get an email that says how many files are backed up or if there are any problems: "hey, computer xyz hasn't been backed up in a week, you should check on it." It's a fixed price regardless of the amount of data.
The other solutions offered probably sound more complex than they are. But Carbonite might be a fine way to go as well. But, have you tested it? Have you routinely tried recovering a file? If not, see my previous note that says "If you have not tested your back up, assume you do not have a back up".

Also, if you have a major crash, you have to wait for Carbonite to ship you a hard drive (overnight I assume), and you still have to go through a recovery process from that drive - and that might keep you down longer than if you had an image on your shelf.

-ERD50
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Old 01-09-2021, 09:39 AM   #24
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A good question to ask yourself when you backup is, what would I restore if things went south?

In my case this is just "The contents of my Documents and Pictures folders". That represents Word documents, PDFs, and photos that I care enough about to have put somewhere and named.

Everything else I clearly couldn't care less about, by definition. I can download and reinstall most of the software I have on there. If, after my computer dies and I get a new one, I fail to download some utility because I can't remember that I had it, well, I probably didn't need it.

On that basis, Google Drive is fine for me. With the Windows app you can configure automatic backups of up to 15GB to up to three Gmail accounts. For most people if you have more than 15GB of documents then they probably aren't all that important anyway, unless perhaps you are a graphic artist (you sure as heck didn't type that amount).

Currently I use this two ways. First, my Documents folder is backed up after every change. That covers me in case my hard drive dies in the middle of the day. Second, I make a nightly whole-tree copy of my Documents folder to a backup area, which is then synchronised to Google (without purging deleted documents unless I do it manually) at 3am. So even if I overwrite my manuscript with a recipe the next day, I can get the previous night's state of that file back. (And in any case, I create a new file every day with the date in the filename. Belt, suspenders, and airbag!)

Another advantage of doing this is that all my backed-up documents are right there on my phone or in any Internet café. If I get a new important piece of paper from the government, I scan it and if I'm overseas and get mugged, I can still produce it at the consulate. Sure, sometimes the original is needed, but many times having a copy will be a whole lot better than not having a copy.
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Old 01-09-2021, 09:50 AM   #25
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When I was using a 250 G SSD, I found (from this forum) the best backup for me was to clone the SSD to another SSD.
I was able to quickly test the clone worked by opening my box, unplugging my original SSD and plug in the new SSD. Then boot up.

I did this to also upgrade from Linux 16 to 18 , made my clone, ensured it worked. then upgraded the "better" of the two SSD's, knowing if it corrupted/failed in upgrade. I could clone again and still have 2 copies of my drive.

I also do tar file backups (compressed backups) of my data files every week or two to some encrypted flash drives.
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Old 01-09-2021, 10:16 AM   #26
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When I was using a 250 G SSD, I found (from this forum) the best backup for me was to clone the SSD to another SSD.
I was able to quickly test the clone worked by opening my box, unplugging my original SSD and plug in the new SSD. Then boot up.

I did this to also upgrade from Linux 16 to 18 , made my clone, ensured it worked. then upgraded the "better" of the two SSD's, knowing if it corrupted/failed in upgrade. I could clone again and still have 2 copies of my drive.

I also do tar file backups (compressed backups) of my data files every week or two to some encrypted flash drives.
That's certainly workable, though less convenient than what I could do on my old Macs, just re-boot and make a keyboard selection (not sure if they still support this - Apple has a tendency to "improve" things in ways I don't like).

But that reminds me - when I get around to shopping for a new laptop to put Linux on, I want to make sure it is easy to get to and replace the drive. (and memory).

-ERD50
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Old 01-09-2021, 10:40 AM   #27
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I don't bother paying the premium for an external USB 3 SSD over an external USB 3 hard drive just for backup, though my backups (Mac) are bootable.
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Old 01-09-2021, 11:01 AM   #28
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A good question to ask yourself when you backup is, what would I restore if things went south?

In my case this is just "The contents of my Documents and Pictures folders". That represents Word documents, PDFs, and photos that I care enough about to have put somewhere and named.

Everything else I clearly couldn't care less about, by definition. I can download and reinstall most of the software I have on there. If, after my computer dies and I get a new one, I fail to download some utility because I can't remember that I had it, well, I probably didn't need it.
Sure, I "could" reinstall Windows, reinstall all my applications, and get everything setup the way I had it. But that process takes a LOT of time and effort, and you never get back to where you originally had things. I've done that several times, it's no fun.

Restoring from a backup is so much faster and easier and everything is setup exactly the way you had it before.

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For most people if you have more than 15GB of documents then they probably aren't all that important anyway
15GB is nothing! Just a few examples of folders on my hard drive:

Family photos is 95GB.
Home videos is 213GB.
Owners manuals, magazine clippings, etc. is 19GB.
Website files is 15GB.
Financial records is 11GB.
Music and personal audio files is 22GB.

Those are all irreplaceable files I could not download or reinstall from anywhere else. A backup is the only protection I have.

Of course, those don't include files I generate daily (recording TV shows can easily result in 10GB-50GB per day), or thousands of other files that I might be able to replace but it would take a lot of time and effort.

Word documents and PDF's are a very small part of the data I need to back up.
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Old 01-09-2021, 11:18 AM   #29
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Thanks for that info. For me, that is not ideal - if I have to restore to use the image, it's pretty hard to test that image. That means wiping out my original, just to test it right? So if the image is hosed up (or more likely, I screw up something), I'm now dead in the water.

That's why I'd like to be able to create the image, and re-boot into it w/o changing anything on my system, other than pointing to it.

In Linux, the GRUB boot loader (GRand Unified Boot-loader) seems needlessly complex and inflexible (or I just don't understand/appreciate it), as it doesn't allow you to boot from that image (because the UUIDs are also cloned, so create a conflict), and updating it seems ticky and can leave you with an unbootable system until you fix it with a LIVE CD/USB. I've read about the ways to change the UUID on the clone, but I think I only got it to work once, and it was pretty involved.

I've resolved myself too just backing up the data. Fortunately, reinstalling Linux is pretty painless, and I've documented my apps/set up (but are out of date now!). And I haven't had a need to reinstall the system anyhow, so it hasn't mattered (yet!).
-ERD50
I have never run into the problem you described. I have a dual boot Linux/Win10 (2 drives). Clonezilla image either drive saves the entire disk (bit for bit) so when it gets restored it acts exactly the same. Clonezilla goes on a bootable USB disk, so if you are using Win10 you may need a program called Rufus to write the .iso to the USB drive and make it bootable.
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Old 01-09-2021, 12:40 PM   #30
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I have never run into the problem you described. I have a dual boot Linux/Win10 (2 drives). Clonezilla image either drive saves the entire disk (bit for bit) so when it gets restored it acts exactly the same. Clonezilla goes on a bootable USB disk, so if you are using Win10 you may need a program called Rufus to write the .iso to the USB drive and make it bootable.
Maybe I didn't describe the issue well enough, or maybe you do have a solution. Let me break it down more precisely, so I can learn what I might be doing wrong then:

****EDIT*** I re-read your comment, and I think I see the disconnect - you said "when it gets restored" - that's my issue - I want to test it before I restore it to my system.

If the clone is bad - I just wiped out my system *AND* I have a bad clone! Now I'm in trouble. I want to test that clone w/o messing up my current running system /****EDIT****



A: I'm booting/running (for example), Xubuntu 18.04, from my internal laptop drive.

B: I use some tool to image/clone Xubuntu 18.04 from my internal laptop drive to an external USB drive. All is good so far.

C: HERE IS MY ISSUE: How do I now boot that external clone to test it? It has the same UUID as the internal (it is a clone), and IIRC, the boot-loader either gets confused when it sees two drives with the same UUID and locks up or quits, or just picks one or the other outside of my control (I don;t recall which, but it didn't work for me).

The only ways I know of are:

A) remove the internal drive (and maybe also refresh GRUB?) so it sees the external (and then refresh GRUB again to see the internal when I switch back?), or ..

B) Jump through some hoops to change the UUID of the clone (and maybe also refresh GRUB to see the new UUID?), so I can choose either one at boot.

Not the end of the world, with a verify I should be able to have confidence in the clone, and if my internal really did crash, I'd be doing a recovery and there would not be two identical UUIDs to cause any problem, so it should boot just fine. But I really miss the Apple method of clone, reboot with option key, and select any boot-able system it finds. That was easy/convenient.

So how can I boot from my clone w/o removing my internal drive?

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Old 01-09-2021, 12:58 PM   #31
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C: HERE IS MY ISSUE: How do I now boot that external clone to test it? It has the same UUID as the internal (it is a clone), and IIRC, the boot-loader either gets confused when it sees two drives with the same UUID and locks up or quits, or just picks one or the other outside of my control (I don;t recall which, but it didn't work for me).

-ERD50
The only real way to test the backed up image is to have another spare drive that you can restore it to. You would need to use the Clonezilla USB drive to start, have it do a restore to the new drive. It should be an exact copy.

You will have problems if two exact drives are on the same system at the same time. One of the drives would need to be removed.
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Old 01-09-2021, 01:48 PM   #32
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The only real way to test the backed up image is to have another spare drive that you can restore it to. You would need to use the Clonezilla USB drive to start, have it do a restore to the new drive. It should be an exact copy.

You will have problems if two exact drives are on the same system at the same time. One of the drives would need to be removed.
Exactly my issue. That's a little bit of work with a laptop with a single internal drive.

Hmmmm, is there a way to make a change in the BIOS, so I could temporarily ignore the internal drive for booting? Looks like there may be, I'll have to look into the BIOS on my laptop:

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...nal-hard-drive

GRUB might still be confused though, I know I get confused trying to understand GRUB.

Back when I questioned this on a Linux forum, I got some Linux fans upset by suggesting that Apple did this better. Some said I should just re-install, it's easy, or that I was trying to reinvent the wheel (no - I wanted to replicate the wheel that Apple invented!), or that I was just a bad person ( OK, I may have imagined that one).

But the Apple method worked so well, and GRUB seems so convoluted, I just don;t get it. Oh well, that's getting OT, but I will try out this BIOS method to see if I can get that to boot a clone w/o removing my internal drive.

Thanks for tweaking my thinking on this. This might be the solution I've been looking for.

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Old 01-09-2021, 02:00 PM   #33
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My issue now, is I upgraded to a 1 T SSD, and now don't have a clone drive ...

I'm still backing up my data, while I ponder to get another SSD or clone to a 1 T regular HD just for the backup factor .
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Old 01-09-2021, 11:26 PM   #34
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If the hardware is different the drivers will not work. If it did work you would lose Win 10 license activation since it checks the hardware.
It wouldn't apply to a laptop, but on my desktop machine I have one drive for Windows and the program files, and a second drive for all of my personal data. I make a separate image backup for each drive.

For most situations (drive failure, virus corruption, accidental erasures, etc.) I can simply restore the image back to the drive and be up and running again.

If I change the motherboard and CPU I would need to go through the long process of reinstalling Windows and all programs. But I can easily restore my personal data back to the second drive (though my personal data drive should already be ready to use with the new hardware).
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Old 01-10-2021, 07:05 AM   #35
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Luckily, my personal data isn't that large. I don't keep much in photos on my laptop, and have no videos stored.
We have an iMac as our main computer and I have a dedicated external HDD backing that up. That's where we keep our photos.

My laptop is a Lenovo Yoga C940 14" screen. It has 12GB RAM and 512GB SSD.
I love it. So far I am using 74GB of the 512GB SSD. Most of that is apps and my data files are about 3GB.

I have been using OneDrive so far for backing up my data files since I get 5G free. I see that not being enough pretty soon though.
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Old 01-10-2021, 08:32 AM   #36
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"If you have not tested your back up, assume you do not have a back up".
Years ago, when I was working, we sold a large tape-based backup solution to a medium-sized customer. They were very happy with how fast the backups were running until they went through a test restore of their backups and found that a major database wasn't part of the backup scheme. (Their fault, not ours). They came back to us to buy more capacity because they couldn't stay within their backup window anymore. Turns out they never told the user group that the database wasn't backed up, only that they needed more capacity "because they were backing up more data". On a personal basis I was using a cloud-based backup system a few years ago. It worked great until I had a failure and tried to restore and it turned out to be a nightmare. Systems are better today but I second the recommendation to actually test your backup!
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Old 01-10-2021, 11:49 AM   #37
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If you ever need to reinstall Windows 10 the .iso can be downloaded from Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

The reinstall will auto reactivate your license.

Also it is good to have your data encrypted. I use Veracrypt (Win10/Linux) to create encrypted containers for the backups. A worst case situation is a house theft where the thief gets your computer and all your accounts and personal data.
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Old 01-10-2021, 01:48 PM   #38
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FWIW, I have a backup program named: Ibackup ... nothing to with Apple.
My IT neighbor set it up, the first backup took a few hours and every daily backup since has only taken 2 minutes while I use the computer anyway. Well, my hard drive got fried once from the cable line somehow and I had nothing. It was very unsettling. I bought a new computer, my IT neighbor came over and restored IBackup and just like magic, everything was there like it had been !
I know there are a few backup systems like this, and I recommend that you do backup automatically.

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Old 01-17-2021, 07:56 AM   #39
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While having a drive connected to a network for automatic backups is convenient, I fear that a power glitch, or maybe a virus gets in, it might destroy both the computer and the back up. Yikes!

For that reason, I prefer to backup to a removable device, and then set that on the shelf (and occasionally put one off-site).

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Old 01-17-2021, 09:23 AM   #40
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I view backups similar to password management. I don't want to have a system too cumbersome to use, yet at the same time need one that doesn't fail.
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