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New to Software Need Help Deciding How to Use it

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Hello,

After my last computer crash I resolved myself to purchase recovery software that would allow me to restore my computer from an image. I was turned on to Acronis but I've only ever used Norton Ghost. Acronis just seemed to be more user friendly.

The thing is, I can't really figure out what I need to do with this. It seems like I need to just do a Disk Partition backup and for my purposes just use the Differential type of backup. But I see a disk clone option which sounds more like what I was thinking but reads as though this is only good if you have a 2nd hard disk installed to clone too and then you can't update. Finally, there's the "Non-Stop Backup" type, but I don't think it is getting the whole drive copied, just the documents. The help docs don't really clear this up for me.

My desire is to have a backup available that restore my ENTIRE system to a valid state. I don't want to have to reinstall windows, all the updates for it or any of my other software. I just want to restore the image and have it all back to where it was pre-crash. How do I do it?

Is the differential backup the way to go with this? I like it because I have the full backup, which is when the computer is in a "good" state plus any changes made since the full backup was made. I'm backing up a 500 GB drive to a 1 TB Passport.

Thanks for the info guys.
Tom

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What you need is 2 things:
- a disk and partition backup containing all the partitions of the disk containing your system (including any OEM, recovery, diagnostic, system reserved, or any other hidden partition). You can use a full, differential or incremental backup. You should have at least 2.5 times the size of a full backup available as your backup storage space. This would correspond to a backup scheme where you have one full, some partials (incremental or differential) and another full before the first chain gets deleted using the autocleaning options. Validate your backup from time to time, and choose a number of partials before a new full so that your last validated full is never too old for you to go back to, if you had any problem with your last backup.
- an Acronis recovery CD that you have tested by booting your computer on it, and restore a couple of files from the backup above.