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Not Sure How to Restore from an actual Backup

I have been saving differential backups for weeks now.  I actually have to restore from a backup (i.e. c drive, OS, etc.), not just files and folders, the whole thing.  The computer is fine, it boots up fine.  I just need to get it back to a state from about one week ago and I can do it within the Acronis software itself (I don't need a bootable usb drive or disk, etc.).

Can someone point me to an article I can read on how to do a "Acronis Image Restore for Dummies".  I just never did it before and there are a few things I want to be sure of (i.e. I use differential backups, I am assuming that I will have to include all those back to the recent full backup and if so, is Acronis smart enough to know that).

Thanks in advance, and I apologize up front for my naivety.

Scott

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Scott, in order to restore back from a differential backup you only need the original Full backup file plus the one matching Differential file to get you to the specific recovery point you want to restore to.

Every Differential backup file contains all changes made since the original Full backup was created.

I would not recommend starting this type of recovery from within Windows as this will require that your Windows Boot Configuration Data has to be modified to create a temporary Linux Kernel boot OS environment from which to launch the ATI offline application.  This may work fine but for some users this can result in an unbootable system!

Please create the ATI bootable Rescue Media on USB or CD/DVD and test that you are able to boot successfully from this, can see your target drive where the backup will be recovered to, and also see your backup storage drive where the recovery will be done from.

See webpage: Check if your PC uses UEFI or BIOS - this is important as your Rescue Media needs to be booted in the same mode as used by your Windows OS, i.e. both using UEFI or both using Legacy BIOS.

See forum topic: [How to] recover an entire disk backup for a guided tutorial that may help your understanding of the process involved.

In reply to by truwrikodrorow…

Makes perfect sense.  Thanks again Steve.  I understand about choosing the last full backup and the last differential I want to recover from.

My question is do I choose two files when I "select backup file"?  Does it allow this?

Thanks.

Scott

Scott just select the one differential file and ATI will find the full backup file. 

In reply to by truwrikodrorow…

Steve, I just restored from a backup per our discussion a few minutes.  Knock on wood, it worked flawlessly and was quite easy.  I followed your guide including creating a bootable rescue media.  Thanks to you, you took the anxiety out of a somewhat stressful process. I am now confident in doing it again when/if I have too.

You are tremendous asset to the forum and have always answered my various posts throughout the year.  Have a nice weekend.

 

Scott

Scott, thanks for your kind words, glad to have been able to help here and thanks for the feedback.