Best FREE image backup for Windows 10/11

Better to destroy a system while you're testing and prepared for it, rather then when you're in the middle of something important and weren't expecting it. Also, and perhaps even more importantly, it teaches you how to restore. If you wait to learn, you may not know how when it is really needed.

Acadia

 

Indeed, I learned the hard way, one software just did not work when I really needed it and my security settings prevented me from restoring a backup from another, because I denied SYSTEM permissions.

 

There is really no other way, to minimize the consequences of a failed restore wiping out a healthy OS, one could at least manually make a copy of the data on C, bookmarks of the browser in use, calendar data, and make sure passwords are available when re-installing windows and third party programs.

I'm not 100% sure, but Macrium Reflect won't start a restore if there are problems pending. I tend to think it is better to deal with it as soon as possible, so one can use the restore feature frequently as a general remedy not just for total disasters (uninstalling important programs, configurations mistakes, malware infections spyware etc...)

As an example, last week Photoshop updated automatically its latest version which turned out to be very buggy on my machine. A quick restore (about 3 minutes) returned the original version. Once it works, it should always work, even though I use only one program, I agree with other members that having two backup programs will give you absolute peace of mind in terms of redundancy.

 

Welcome to the old year still.

What do you think of Ashampoo Backup ?

Is it worth installing and using ?

I have never had to deal with it.

 

Mission critical when it comes to your OS and all of your programs and settings. I actually jumped from having backups from 2 programs to 3 different programs. Might be overkill but like you said it's piece of mind knowing that I've done my best in being ready for a complete system fail/crash!

 

Active@ Disk Image Lite. This one is a gem and I personally used it for years without any issues. Give it a shot and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

But to the point @Brian K made, spend some coffee money on disk imaging software since you are enjoying and needing them. They need to survive as well. If no one pays for their software, they'll die and there will be no free software to use. Over the years I purchased Terabyte Image for Windows, Acronis TI, Active@ Disk Image, Drive Snapshot, Paragon and R-Drive Image, as I found these are the most reliable and sophisticated programs long in the market. I never had any issues with these. AOMEI is inconsistent in my testing, so I give up on it a few years ago.

 

Hi oliverjia,

Are you talking about this one:
https://www.disk-image.com/index.html ?

Things are not so easily to find on the LSoft Technologies sites ... Things are on so many other sites from them ...

BTW: too late I saw that LSoft Technologies had a Winter Sale but that is now too late:
https://www.lsoft.net/index.html

We should better pay attention to their "sales" next time.

 

I tried Active@ Disk image lite about a week ago but could not figure out how to restore my test backup since there where no possibility to create recover/rescue media.

Also, it has not been updated since november 2021 so that raises questions.

 

Exactly! I saw that too.

 

Another thing that is a drawback with it is that it has no boot menu option, only usb cd/dvd for boot media. Very old fashioned and slow. That is a pity since it was super fast in doing a backup, amazingly so.

 

Qiling disk master free is also reliable. But I only use bootable media to image and restore. Another good option is Lazesoft recovery suite home edition but I have not used it in windows 11

 

@FanJ and @pb1
Active@ has been actively developed, just not that many updates. It simply works. As a disk imaging utility, the most important thing is reliability and speed/compression capacity.
The Lite version does not have an official WinPE version, I used to use Win10XPE and a Active@ Disk Image script to build it into a WinPE environment on boot USB. Later I purchased the Pro version which allows creating boot USB.
I'm not a fan of using boot menu as this will create boot entries on the disks to be backed up. I prefer to do cold whole-disk backups from boot USB in WinPE environment.

 

i prefer also PE builds, or linux based - both are pretty independent vs used windows and its influences. and i have working emergency medium and do not need to gamble around with uncertain methods to create more data loss as currently is.

From my experience - Aomei has issues with drives # > 1. BIOS listing has not to meet windows listing, so aomei can fail this way - and it did with 3 drives here, but it stopped for this reason.

acronis can do, but the listing is also different what do not matter at least.
O&O created bigger backups and was significant slower, dropped.

 

Right now i suggest the new Hasleo Backup Suite. Fast and efficient. Currently free as well as currently active support from the developer.

 

So, which from the Freeware offers a Boot Menu option
(apart from the ability to create Boot Media: USB/CD/DVD)?

 

Since I'm testing Hasleo currently... I can vouch for that. Also, using EasyBCD (and most likely, BCDedit) and almost any WinPE-based ISO... the WIM can be extracted from the ISO and placed in the BOOT menu for UEFI BOOTing. The ISO itself (or the WIM) can be placed there for Legacy-MBR BOOTing.

 

- Hasleo

- MiniTool ShadowMaker

are there other Free ones that offer the Add Boot Menu option?

 

@Hasleo

I just installed the program, created a boot menu and did a system backup. Did some very minor but clearly visible changes and then clicked restore. In restore mode it showed after which looked like a done restore this message: Failed to run System API. 0x0097001500000057

When i booted, manually, the visible changes where restored?!

 

Wrong question

 

Go to "Tools" => "Add/Remove Boot Menu".

 

I always been intrigued by the Active@ other programs like it's Partition Recovery and such yet wasn't attracted by it's Disk Image Product and i don't know why. Maybe because at the time i had enough coverage for imaging/restore thru other vendors. I will say Active@ judging from the other of it's programs i used impressed me by their technology they employed to them and i liked that.

I may just try it and see how she performs.

 

Yes i know.

But i was thinking about something else, and asked the wrong question so i deleted my post.

Thank you anyhow.

 

Agreed. AOMEI is indeed inferior in terms of reliability, so I don't understand why people still use it especially when there are so many other good choices. O&O and Macrium Reflect are both slow and creates bigger disk images.

 

@oliverjia - I was looking over your list on post #106 and was just curious, in your opinion what is your top paid 2-3 backup programs and top 2-3 free backup programs you would recommend? I too am not a fan of the boot menu option and prefer to create a boot usb drive to restore a full image of the system drive. Seems like you tested a few and now is as good a time as any for some tested recommendations.

 

Not for me. Aomei Backupper is laid claim with their latest release resulting in 100% images and flawless restores. Absolutely not only reliable but not a single mishap or issue whatsoever. I imagine it depends on a user's respective rig or configuration whether it's efficient for that machine or not. On this end it is proven completely dependable and as a sometimes harsh skeptic i can honestly say that i am very impressed with Aomei until it proves otherwise..