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Is it wise to recover from backup just to test if it will work?

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So I've created 2 backups at two different stages of my installation of new programs on a new laptop.  And I feel safer knowing I have.  But I have doubts as to whether I should feel so safe I guess.

Part of me wants to recover from my latest backup just to test that it works and another part of me thinks that's testing fate and I should probably only use it if necessary.

Is there any reason for me to be so cautious?  Should I just test it and put my mind to rest or is that indeed an unnecessary risk?  I figured I'd ask you old hands who have used Acronis a lot more than me.

I have my laptop's NTFS C drive backed up on an external SSD that is ex FAT.

So what's the verdict?  To recover or not to recover?  What do you good Samaritans say?

Thanks!

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Chris, welcome to these public User Forums.

At a minimum you should create the Acronis Rescue Media for your new laptop and test that you understand how to use this to boot the laptop using the correct BIOS boot mode, then check that you are able to see both the internal drive and your external SSD that contains your backups.

For your main question, then consider investing in a spare laptop drive to use for doing this type of testing, where you could remove the current fully working drive, replace it by the spare and do a full recovery from your external SSD followed by testing that all is good & boots into Windows etc while having the assurance of the original drive stored safely in a cupboard or similar.

See KB 65508: Acronis True Image 2021: how to create bootable media and KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

KB 65539: Acronis True Image 2021: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

Hi Steve and thanks for the lovely welcome!

Ok, so I'll watch some YouTube vids on making and using Acronis Rescue Media first.  And if I understand your testing advice it is to:

1 - Buy another hard drive

2 - Swap it out

3 - Use my Acronis Rescue Media to recover my current HD onto the new drive

4 - Test everything works well

5 - Sit back and at ease, feet up, with a fine beer, and no worries in the world

Did I get that right?

Thanks again for the direction.  If this is the plan I'll get 'er done.

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Yes, Steve got it exactly right.

If you have a backup and recovery system, the thing you must do is recover a backup to a test disk and make sure all is good.

About 10 years ago, I had NOT done that and a disk failure forced me to do something I had not done yet, recover my system.  I thought, what an idiot I was to not test a recovery.  It was a mess but I eventually got everything repaired thanks to the kind folks in this forum and I needed their help to accomplish a recovery.  Things are better now and the process is more robust.  

Although I am no longer using Acronis TIH as my main backup/recovery system, actually going through the process and creating a recovered disk that actually boots and has all your stuff intact is absolutely essential.

Regards,

Steve F.

 

I agree, recovery performed successfully builds confidence which is a must have in working with disks.

Actually, one other question - my laptop has a slot for a second HD in it (Acer Helios Predator 300).  Is it just as good to add a HD (instead of replacing) and restoring my disk to the second HD and having the PC boot from there?  I figure at least the second HD can be used after whereas a replacement primary drive won't have any use to me after the test

Thoughts?

Thanks again guys!

Chris, this is not a good idea. Having two disks of the same thing can cause Windows confusion.

Chris, you can use the second drive for storing a local backup and/or holding data.  I have an HP Omen laptop with a 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD which has the OS & all applications in one partition, my data in a second partition, along with a 2TB HDD second drive which also has 2 partitions, one for user data and the other for backups.

The benefit is that I can do a recovery, if needed, from that second drive if travelling, plus this makes for one of my multiple backup destinations along with external drives, NAS etc.

As Bruno mentioned, not a good idea to have 2 copies of your main OS drive in the PC!

I agree with Steve Smith; if you can afford to do so, it is a good idea with a laptop to take advantage of the ability to add a second drive and use if as one location for backups, which is particularly useful when you are on the road and find that you USB drive with backups on it has died, or somehow the backup is corrupted. I believe in exercising abundant caution when it comes to backup, particularly of important files.

Ian

Perdido Beach  wrote:

Although I am no longer using Acronis TIH as my main backup/recovery system, actually going through the process and creating a recovered disk that actually boots and has all your stuff intact is absolutely essential

 

Steve - Your new backup solution actually has a feature (viBoot) that allows you to boot into a disk image as a virtual machine.

 

JK