New Laptop Question - Backup Image?

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GregGleason

GregGleason

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I recently got a new laptop and I am looking for guidance.

Is there a need to create a backup image before I start loading my own stuff on it? Is that even necessary any more? I know that's what you used to do, but I don't know if there are more up to date protocols to follow.

Greg
 
If it is brand new without your data I would not do it yet.

Get it loaded, and then make a system image very shortly thereafter.

Then I would make one periodically- once or twice a year.

I would also setup a backup plan with an external drive. This is more the data than the operating system and apps. Frequency depends on how dynamic your data is. For my home systems I have an image of each after I got most apps installed and configured. Then I have another external that I have folders on. For my data I actually just use Microsoft Sync Toy. Neat little tool that allows you to define what folders to copy. You can also set them to synchronize so if you used the external to move data between two systems you could always have the latest copy of your data just by syncing. Similar I guess to a web based storage without the web.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

Do you have a recommendation for an external drive?

Greg
 
I'll provide a different view. I would make a backup image right away before making any changes. And another one after you get it set up how you want. Here's why I do it that way: I use the Adobe Creative Cloud suite which is comprised of many different programs. I don't download all of them but quite a few. This summer there was a major update that uninstalled the old versions and installed the new ones. I went back and got my clean backup image, restored it, and then downloaded all the new versions. The result was much cleaner than leaving a bunch of partially deleted folders.

The other issue I've had is once during setting up a new PC I hooked up a USB device that installed a driver that nuked a different version of a similar driver that I was never able to fix. I had to reinstall the clean install so I could start over with setup.

Here's what I always tell folks: no one ever emailed and told me making a backup copy of the system new out of box was a bad idea.

Good luck,


Tony
 
manixFan said:
I'll provide a different view. I would make a backup image right away before making any changes. And another one after you get it set up how you want. Here's why I do it that way: I use the Adobe Creative Cloud suite which is comprised of many different programs. I don't download all of them but quite a few. This summer there was a major update that uninstalled the old versions and installed the new ones. I went back and got my clean backup image, restored it, and then downloaded all the new versions. The result was much cleaner than leaving a bunch of partially deleted folders.

The other issue I've had is once during setting up a new PC I hooked up a USB device that installed a driver that nuked a different version of a similar driver that I was never able to fix. I had to reinstall the clean install so I could start over with setup.

Here's what I always tell folks: no one ever emailed and told me making a backup copy of the system new out of box was a bad idea.

Good luck,


Tony
Click to expand...

Sounds like I will do that. May cost a bit more, but 32GB thumb drives are relatively inexpensive.

Greg
 
When making image backups, keep in mind that some newer computers won't boot certain recovery programs properly. For example, I have a Win 10 laptop/tablet combo, but I can't run my Acronis self-booting recovery environment due to the machine's very restrictive BIOS. It requires UEFI compliant OS, and only certain ones (apparently, just Windows), to actually boot, no matter how I set the BIOS.
 

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