1 minute ago, Rockliffe said:

My PC man is not a great advocate of such software, he suggests I get a nice big HD and simply clone the drives across.

That's definitely a good idea but, technically, cloning just completely reproduces one drive on another (empty sectors and all) and does not allow multiple physical drives to be saved on to one target drive - you need a separate drive for each drive you want to clone. It's also time consuming as the entire drive has to be cloned each time you do it. Imaging, on the other hand, makes more sense for backup because you can put multiple image backups onto one sufficiently large external hard drive. It also allows you to subsequently back up just the changes that have happened since the last full image was created so the backup is generally much faster.

I use a real belt-and-braces approach to backups. I use Microsoft SyncToy to synchronise important folders from my PC to a NAS drive. I also sync those folders to MS OneDrive in the cloud (always a good idea to have remote backups of stuff that can't be replaced). Finally, I use Macrium Reflect to image my drives weekly to a large, external USB drive. I've been caught out once and I'm determined it won't happen again.

31 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

That's definitely a good idea but, technically, cloning just completely reproduces one drive on another (empty sectors and all) and does not allow multiple physical drives to be saved on to one target drive - you need a separate drive for each drive you want to clone. It's also time consuming as the entire drive has to be cloned each time you do it. Imaging, on the other hand, makes more sense for backup because you can put multiple image backups onto one sufficiently large external hard drive. It also allows you to subsequently back up just the changes that have happened since the last full image was created so the backup is generally much faster.

I use a real belt-and-braces approach to backups. I use Microsoft SyncToy to synchronise important folders from my PC to a NAS drive. I also sync those folders to MS OneDrive in the cloud (always a good idea to have remote backups of stuff that can't be replaced). Finally, I use Macrium Reflect to image my drives weekly to a large, external USB drive. I've been caught out once and I'm determined it won't happen again.

Hmm, sounds like I need to follow your advice. So is Macrium Reflect intuitive and easy to use? It appears not as straightforward as Easeus Todo Backup, which has some good reviews. From reading about it, it seems the free version would be fine for me, as I always just do a complete drive clone. I don't bother with files or folders, just a straight drive to drive copy. What do you think?

37 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Hmm, sounds like I need to follow your advice. So is Macrium Reflect intuitive and easy to use?

It is very easy to use and totally reliable, you can also install it to your boot menu so as long as you can get to that point you will be able to fully recover your machine.

the paid version has some really neat things, you will probably buy that one eventually.

2 minutes ago, Glynn said:

It is very easy to use and totally reliable, you can also install it to your boot menu so as long as you can get to that point you will be able to fully recover your machine.

the paid version has some really neat things, you will probably buy that one eventually.

you can also install it to your boot menu... by this do you mean it's possible to burn a recovery disc inc case the OS drive fails?

Some kind of adjustment to the boot menu may be the very cause of the problem in the first place. It's possible both backup apps lead to the same problem with a particular hardware setup.

AOMEI Backupper.  Solid as a rock.  Went to it several years ago after Acronis failed me (same sort of thing Vortex noted above).  It isn't as fast as Macrium but it is stone cold simple to use (even my wife can use it, and she has trouble clicking on the CCleaner icon then pressing the "Run" button!!).

https://www.aomeitech.com/aomei-backupper.html

Greg

Get whatever make of backup app you want up and running and restoring a simple Windows setup before putting the sims and anything else on - is what I'm suggesting.

21 hours ago, lownslo said:

AOMEI Backupper.  Solid as a rock.  Went to it several years ago after Acronis failed me (same sort of thing Vortex noted above).  It isn't as fast as Macrium but it is stone cold simple to use (even my wife can use it, and she has trouble clicking on the CCleaner icon then pressing the "Run" button!!).

https://www.aomeitech.com/aomei-backupper.html

Greg

Do you have the free version Gregg?

22 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

you can also install it to your boot menu... by this do you mean it's possible to burn a recovery disc inc case the OS drive fails?

You can burn a recovery disk but the better option is to install the recovery environment to your boot menu.... you will then be presented with the option to load windows or the Macrium recovery system at every boot.

Macrium is by far the fastest of all the imaging software, it does a differential backup every day of my OS drive and P3D drive in less than two mins . The paid versions incremental backup and delta restore is very rapid indeed.

Solid software with very good support by a British company

23 hours ago, lownslo said:

It isn't as fast as Macrium but it is stone cold simple to use

That can be both a good and a bad feature, depending on your requirements. Macrium Reflect can do a simple, no-frills backup if that's all you want but it's big advantage is that it's very customisable with many extra features which are available if you want them. 

3 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

Do you have the free version Gregg?

I use the free version.  Have tried the pay version (from GiveAwayoftheDay) but didn't see any real advantage... maybe better scheduling options (which I don't use).  The core program is the same in both versions.

HTH,

Greg

42 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

That can be both a good and a bad feature, depending on your requirements. Macrium Reflect can do a simple, no-frills backup if that's all you want but it's big advantage is that it's very customisable with many extra features which are available if you want them. 

I've tried Macrium Reflect and consider it to be an outstanding program... as you say, many options for customization, and a bit faster than the AOMEI program.  But I have to work to my least common (computer) denominator... because she won't use something she finds too complicated.  And if she won't use it, then backup images don't happen.

Greg

Just now, lownslo said:

And if she won't use it, then backup images don't happen.

I feel your pain!

2 hours ago, lownslo said:

I've tried Macrium Reflect and consider it to be an outstanding program... as you say, many options for customization, and a bit faster than the AOMEI program.  But I have to work to my least common (computer) denominator... because she won't use something she finds too complicated.  And if she won't use it, then backup images don't happen.

Greg

That's good. I like simple too! All I want, is just a single click of a button to copy all my drives across to a backup, nothing else. So the simpler and easier it is, the less likely there will be of mistakes being made!