There are several possible backup utilities that can be used to backup your
computer, ranging from Windows own included backup utility, to a wide variety
of commercial and other packages.
I happen to use and recommend Acronis TrueImage Home,
and will use it for this video series on how to backup your computer. Even if you don't happen to use Acronis, many of the concepts
I'll demonstrate will be similar, though the specific details will vary - often dramatically.
We start ... with an installation.
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(Downloadable mp4 - 6,976,223 bytes)
Transcript
This is Leo Notenboom for AskLeo.net.
In order to backup, the first thing we are going to do is install backup software. For this series of examples, I'm going to use Acronis TrueImage Home 2009. I've already downloaded the executable and we'll double click here to start it.
You want to, of course, install the software.
You have to accept the license agreement.
In this particular case I'm going to use the trial mode. Fill in some information.
Opt out of any email that they might want to send me at this point.
In this particular case, I'm going to go ahead and install with the typical installation settings. Custom would allow me to; perhaps, change the location of the software on my machine and select some other options. But for these examples, typical will definitely do what we need.
And, again, I'm going to install for all the users that use this computer. The default, which is the default in this case, if you install for only the current user, if you have multiple users that login to your machine, only the current user, in other words, the user I'm logged in as right now, would be able to use the software.
And we're off.
After some time, which I've magically made disappear through the magic of video editing, the installation's done, we hit close.
Acronis does require that we re-boot the machine in order to finish the installation.
After restarting our system, we'll find that Acronis actually shows up on the all programs menu.
We're going to not use this one click protection for the moment. For this example case, we're more interested in actually understanding what it's going to take to make a complete backup and prepare ourselves for the eventual restore.
That's our next step.
I purchased Acronis v9 but have not yet used it. Is there any reason to upgrade to v10? One of your comments says to use the latest version only. Why?
If you do upgrade, you should FIRST make your bootable media(and copies of it).
Then upgrade and make bootable media(and copies of this).
I am on ATI Home 2010.
I am struggling with migrating my current hard drive to an upgraded hard drive in the same computer.
I know there are some iffy things (errors) in the software.
Check the Acronis forums as this has registered users’ complaints(I think this is how you access and post there…)
See what is said about each version(and slight upgrades) and how this might affect YOUR target uses.
If you don’t want to spend a lot of money for Acronis, you may take a look at Handy Backup – the cheaper but reliable solution.
Hi Leo,
I just bought a new computer and was planning on buying Acronis True Image to take an image of my machine before doing anything else as i don’t have installation software of any kind. However when looking at your video i noticed that you are using the 30 day trial period that you have downloaded for the purpose of this demonstration. So, my question is….if i were to also do the same(switch on windows firewall in windows 7 and connect to the net) and then download the trial version does that mean that i will get the full software with all it’s features including of course, the ability to make a full image of my machine for 30 days? ….i don’t really have any plans as of now for using acronis true image beyond making a first image of my machine….at least for now….and if so i guess there would be no reason for me to purchase the software right? Maybe you could mention this point in your article.
Your Reply would be greatly appreciated.
P.S : By the way…wonderful site…easily the best in it’s category that i’ve found on the web! thanks for the help!