Cloning Windows 10

[cthomas]

In the last six  months I have had to reinstall Windows 10 two times. How do you prepare to do this so that you don't lose every thing? Do you make a clone of your Windows 10?

[Mario]

Why did you have to reinstall Windows 10? Disk lost? Not working?

I can only recommend a proper "imaging" backup software (Macrium Reflect, TrueImage). Restoring a damaged Windows Installation, individual files or an entire disk is a snap with these tools.

[cthomas]

Mario I don't know for sure why I had to reinstall. I could not get my CD/DVD on my Dll Precision Tower 7910. Dell sent mea new DVD drive and that still did not work. So dell gave me the worst instructions. They sent me  new media aand told me to reinstall Windows 10. so How did you use TrueImage? Even when I use TrueImage to backup I still have to reinstall Windows 10?

[Mario]

TrueImage makes a copy of your hard disk on another disk (external USB disk, for example).
It also allows you to create a "boot media" on an USB stick.

If the worst happens, you boot TrueImage from the USB disk and then tell it to restore your C: drive from the backup. This brings back Windows as it was at time of the last backup, with all settings, software insalled etc. Disaster recovery.

This is not necessarily a cure for hardware-related problems like a non-functioning DVD drive.
But there are surely better hardware-oriented communities out there than the IMatch community.

[Carlo Didier]

I never had to re-install Windows because of a hardware problem, unless it was the system disk that went bonkers. They gave bad advice, the simplest "solution" for them, with lots of work for you and little likeliness of success ...
But I understand that it's very difficult to remotely analyse and diagnose such problems.

[cthomas]

Why did you have to reinstall Windows 10? Disk lost? Not working?

I can only recommend a proper "imaging" backup software (Macrium Reflect, TrueImage). Restoring a damaged Windows Installation, individual files or an entire disk is a snap with these tools.

Which one of these would you suggest? And why? Do you use one of theses?

[Mario]

If you search for Macrium or TrueImage in this community you'll find several discussions we had:

https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?action=search2

There are of course also other, probably more competent, resources on the Internet for such non-DAM topics.

[Jingo]

Just to add my own 2cents... I use Novabackup for folder and item-by-item backup.. but use Macrium Reflect for OS cloning... works really great!

[ianrr]

+1   re macrium reflect,  tried a few others but MR is excellent !

[jch2103]

Another +1 for Macrium Reflect. I started with the free version, later upgraded to $ version.

[sinus]

Yep, I use also Macrium Reflect, a good program.