@GrafZeppelin, Appreicate you trying to answer my question! And yes, you interpreted my question correctly. Kind regards, Moose's World
Shadow Protect - first and always - for many years. Almost never let me down. Why? I don't install the app, I use the recovery environment on an optical disk to both create an image and to restore an image outside of windows. cheers, feandur
Acronis & Macrium for imaging. DirSync, FreeFileSync, and Explorer's copy/paste functionality for individual files. I also boot from the recovery environment optical disc for offline imaging. Never had any ambiguities or issues.
Yup... Macrium Reflect Free 4.2.3638 is still the best version they've ever made. ... that anyone's ever made, IMO, for that matter.
I use the German made O&O DiskImage 7 from a live disk. I also use Aomei Backupper from inside windows and also from live disk. I was under the impression that backing up from within windows, that some files may be in use and not get backed up, so this is why I still only boot from a live disk for this task.
The Xp laptop I'm posting this on still uses Powerquest Drive Image 2002 for system images. I've still got a few systems old enough to work with it and why change if it works. For newer systems I use Aomei Backupper and Partition Assistant which has been the closest to the old Powerquest software in the way it works. It also has a rare quality in free commercial software: It is polite. I can't stand any in house banner advertising and nags to upgrade to a paid version. For data backups, I just copy files manually to an external drive. For specialized sector by sector imaging for stuff with file systems that aren't recognized by other imaging programs, I use a free app called HDDRawCopy. It will handle almost anything and manages to achieve pretty good compression.
hmm... I've always heard that starting with Windows 7 the built in imaging app is very good, and that people often then claim they no longer have any need for a 3'rd party imaging app.
To be honest I've never tried it. I doubt that I can set it up the way I did Macrium - automatic weekly whole partition image and each day incremental only.
I find the built in Windows 7 imaging reliable but it is very basic, slow and has large image files. I use custom partition schemes and clone a lot so it isn't up to my needs.
Acronis boot discs. Their main desktop software is so damned bloated and seems to change every year for no good reason.
I use lazesoft recovery suite bootable media for backup and restores. It doesn't provide incremental and differential backups but is reliable and fast in backup and restore.
I see RollBack Rx getting talked about a bit., but is not on the list. Is it as reliable as other options such as Reflect and IFW?
They don't cover the same needs. IFW and Macrium Reflect are imaging tools used for backup AND recovery even in case of harware failure, Rollback is an instant recovery tool that cannot help you, AFAIK, should your HDD fail.
Useless for whom, and for what application? Use your imagination before making these absolute statements.
I am using EaseUS todo backup 8.9 and 9.1. Been using it and earlier versions for years now. On my main computers I use it AND Macrium Reflect every day. If EaseUS lets me down, I have Reflect to save me. EaseUS has never failed me but BOTH are fine.
On my Lenovo Easeus TDB stopped working after V7, backup would take more and more time as the process progressed and finally failed. I have contacted their support many times, to no avail. Macrium works fine on the same machine. And AOMEI Backupper Pro also and has already restaured many times successfully my PC.
Macrium Reflect and the latest release of Drive Snapshot as a safeguard/failsafe which is much more efficient for UEFI/GPT systems now.
I've used Windows 10 built-in imaging for almost a year now without problems. But now it cannot image my Samsung 850 Pro SSD. Maybe it has something to do with "over provisioning"? Maybe not because it gets stuck at "Creating image of System Reserved". Then it fails with "The mounted backup volume is inaccessible"... My fresh installation of Windows 10 wasn't trouble-free on this SSD either, so it might be another case of bad luck (I couldn't even clone from an old 128 GB SSD to newer 120 GB before, and NCIX refused to fully refund me cause it worked on normal file operations). I'll try Macrium Reflect, but does anyone know if its Rapid Delta Cloning will work in this scenario? Otherwise, I don't really see the point of installing yet another software. *Macrium seemed to have worked, but I haven't restored anything yet. Until then, it'll be a trial I guess.
