Be Prepared: Create a Recovery Drive for your OS

[Jay Freedman]

Thanks again! I remember seeing that page, early in my search, and thinking I'd need to come back to download the SnapAPI driver. I guess I got sidetracked after that, and never did come back to it. Now I have it, and we'll see how it goes.

[Rudi]

With some questions been asked about system restore, here are two useful articles to review if you have questions about the process of restoring your PC to an earlier time, as well as some technicalities that are useful to know.

-- Windows 8 System Restore Guide
-- Windows 7 System Restore Guide

[Jay Freedman]

Thanks, Rudi. Maybe next time I will use System Restore -- but this time I learned something important about Acronis TrueImage, even if it was painful.

[ringel05]

I don't do recovery drives. None of my important documents, pictures, etc are stored on my HD except for a short period before I move them to the cloud, a DVD or thumb drive (to include my browser profile and favorites). My emergency back up is a DVD that I burned an ISO of Linux MacPup which runs entirely on RAM so if my HD goes bad I can still access any personal files that I haven't stored.
The primary reason for this is once every year or two I wipe my HD (on all my machines) and do a fresh install, it's amazing how a fresh OS install will make your computer feel.........

[Rudi]

U use SyncBack to do all my backups. I have a 1TB Western Digital external drive and with a single click on a backup button it runs several profiles that backs up my Documents, Pictures, and Work folders to the WD Drive (actually I have two drives to which I backup). Then every 18 - 24 months I too refresh my HD with a clean install of an OS. It works wonderful as you say...

[ringel05]

U use SyncBack to do all my backups. I have a 1TB Western Digital external drive and with a single click on a backup button it runs several profiles that backs up my Documents, Pictures, and Work folders to the WD Drive (actually I have two drives to which I backup). Then every 18 - 24 months I too refresh my HD with a clean install of an OS. It works wonderful as you say...