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best way to backup for recovery to same pc

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Hello -- I'm a newbie and have read the acronis articles but would appreciate some help.  I have windows 8.1, and acronis true image 2020.  If I want to create a backup that will allow me to restore my pc if it crashes, is it better (1) to use the 'Entire PC' as the source?  (2) to use "Disks and Partitions' as the source, and select all the disks and partitions that are listed there, including 'lenovo D' (which was installed by lenovo)?  Or (3) to 'clone' my computer?

Thanks very much for any help.

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In my experience it is best to use Disk and Partitions rather than entire PC as that sometimes picks up USB drives.

I would create several backup tasks (assuming the PC only has one HHD/SSD).

  1. make a disk + partitions backup of the whole drive (which I would run once a week).
  2. make a backup of the system partition which I would run each day
  3. make a files and backup task that backup my user files (Documents, Downloads etc) that I would also run each day. If the data in some of those directories does not change often, create separate tasks with appropriate intervals, or just run the manually.

The cleanup rule would differ for each task; you may want to keep the files and folders for longer than the system partition,

Also you should consider backing up to multiple destination; I backup to my NAS, the Acronis Cloud and to an internal HDD, and on some PC to a USB drive. If you backup to USB drives, I would recommend have at least two - things can go wrong. It would also be good if you had some sort of off-site storage. I do this by taking a USB drive to my mother-in-laws and backup to here computer (as an added precaution she cannot access that HDD).

Ian

Thanks very much.  If I can just clarify, when you say 'system partition' -- looking at the list of partitions that show in the acronis list, I seem to have 6 partitions:  EFI system partition;  Windows8_OS (C:)  [which has data/applications that I've added to the pc];   Lenovo D [which came with the pc];  LRS_ESP;  and 2 recovery partitions.   

When you refer to the system partition, do you mean the one call EFT system partition?   I'm asking because it seems to be very small, only 0.1 GB, and so I'm not sure if that's the right one.

Thanks again.  

 

 

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I believe that Ian was referring to your C: OS partition in his comments, but personally I would suggest just backing up the whole disk drive with all of its partitions as the size difference is not that great and recovery will need the whole disk, especially if restoring to a new disk drive.

Steve Smith wrote:

I believe that Ian was referring to your C: OS partition in his comments, but personally I would suggest just backing up the whole disk drive with all of its partitions as the size difference is not that great and recovery will need the whole disk, especially if restoring to a new disk drive.

Steve, I agree with that; I was intending to make this comment in relation to separate data partitions on the same HDD/SSD that has the OS partition.

Ian