The Importance of an Image of your Hard Drive

[richc46]

To all my friends old and new.

Please download and use software to create an image of your hard drive. I use Macrium Reflect and luckily after not upadating for several months, I did so yesterday. Well this morning I was notified about all the updates from Update Tuesday. One of them froze during the restart and I was frozen at loading Windows. I waited and waited until finally I performed the dreaded forced shutdown. Well my OS was gone, I got the message no OS found. I tried repair with my Installation DVD, well I still could not boot. Finally, with Macrium Reflect, I restored fully to yesterday. If you do not take any of my other advice, please take this advice seriously.

 

[NoelDP]

OUCH!
Timely advice - although if I know most people, they'll carry on with whatever they were (not) doing before

Just as a FWIW - what fixes did you attempt from the RE boot?

 

[whs]

Thanks Rich for alerting us. I have to check my wife's system. She just ran the updates 10 minutes ago. I did not yet.

 

[richc46]

Actually, when the problem first occurred, I was quite calm, since I felt that I could do a repair install from my install DVD, but no dice. I had used the Windows SP1 (I have Seven) clean up tool and could not uninstall SP1. Since my DVD is sans SP1, it could not be used. I even tried to so with System restore, but said that I had none, when I have at least a dozen. This is probably due to the SP1 situation.
When I booted from the OS, had the opportunity only once, I went with the suggestion to select starup repair. I was notified that if all repairs could not be made it would restart. It completed its repair, did not restart and I was still out of luck.
At this point, I felt why take time to try other methods, I had an updated image, went with it and it worked like a charm. From now on, after every update Tuesday, I am making a copy with Reflect, every two weeks after an update Tuesday, I am making a system image (this is native to Windows Seven)

 

[whs]

On my main system, I run an image 3 times per week - takes only 8 minutes to an external eSata.

 

[richc46]

Wolfgang,
You always mention that you image frequently, and to be honest, I thought it was a bit excessive. I thought that these things didnt happen to the pros, but I found out I was wrong. I will probably image once a week now.

 

[ilikefree]

I do one once a week and keep two deleting the oldest each week

 

[MWRed]

Thanks for the reminder.
I'm not a person that backs up really.
But I figure once a month won't hurt since I have an external with plenty of space.

 

[Corrine]

Fortunately, you didn't have a rather expensive door-stop on your hands because you had a back up. Now a bit of advice to folks on Windows Updates:

1) You don't have to install the updates the day they are released but don't wait too long either.

2) When updates include .NET Framework, install them separately and then do a shutdown/restart. For some reason some computers have problems with .NET Framework updates.

 

[whs]

Wolfgang,
You always mention that you image frequently, and to be honest, I thought it was a bit excessive. I thought that these things didnt happen to the pros, but I found out I was wrong. I will probably image once a week now.

Rich, I learned that the hard way. Maybe I do too much 'experimental processing' (another way of saying that I srew around with the system). And once in a while something goes AWOL. An image is always a welcome means to get me back.

 

[NoelDP]

On my main system, I run an image 3 times per week - takes only 8 minutes to an external eSata.

That has to be a pretty minimalist System drive - what size is the image?

 

[whs]

On my main system, I run an image 3 times per week - takes only 8 minutes to an external eSata.

That has to be a pretty minimalist System drive - what size is the image?

C:\ has 44.2GB of data and the Macrium image is 25.2GB. The write speed for the image hovers between 600 and 700Mb/sec.

There is no user data in C:\ - only Windows 7 as the host and 2 virtual partitions (Windows 8 and Ubuntu) plus a lot of programs in the host and the guests.

 

[NoelDP]

C:\ has 44.2GB of data and the Macrium image is 25.2GB. The write speed for the image hovers between 600 and 700Mb/sec.

There is no user data in C:\ - only Windows 7 as the host and 2 virtual partitions (Windows 8 and Ubuntu) plus a lot of programs in the host and the guests.

That's a very impressive transfer rate! - ~50MB/s

 

[wither 3]

I think I lucked out. When it installed the first batch of updates and I rebooted, it said it couldn't find the "User Profile" so I had nothing in my taskbar but the Desktop was okay. I restarted and everything went back to normal. Last night it installed the rest of the updates and did the same thing and a restart fixed it again.

 

[richc46]

Listen guys, the writing is on the wall. Before each update make sure that we have a very current updated image. I lucked out, I made one the day before the updates.

 

[Cytherian]

Really good warning, Rich. I just used Macrium Reflect to back up my system. It took a little over 3 hours, but that's because my volume took up 200Gb! Medium compression resulted in a 170Gb file. This was a test back-up, as I'm going to pare down my volume quite a bit, taking off lots of video media which I don't need backed up more than once.

Also, I strongly recommend getting a new external hard drive. Prices have come down quite a bit and USB 3.0 is now available. A laptop supporting USB 2.0 can be facilitated with USB 3.0 by inserting an adapter in the ExpressCard slot. I don't think you get the absolute full benefits of 3.0, but it's definitely better than 2.0.

 

[whs]

If you want speed for the imaging, use an eSata drive. My measured backup of 44GBs took 8 minutes.