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My absolute favorite is the free version of Macrium Reflect. I have used it over a hundred times with zero issues.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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Same here. I have a nightly Reflect backup job that just works.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Is the free version capable to launch the backup task when the operating system is shut down?
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The built-in scheduling doesn't appear to let you schedule a backup for shutdown events.
Another option would be to create a backup plan that shuts down the computer when the process is complete. You can invoke the plan from a batch file if you'd like a "single click" sort of operation. This approach would let you perform shutdowns normally or with the backup based upon your choice at the time, rather than always having the backup run.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Yes... but... we are speaking of my mother...
I prefer to be 100% sure she gets the backup done when she shuts her computer down no matter how she does it.
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Another approach might be to create an application that listens for the shutdown request and invokes Reflect appropriately. You could have the application tell Windows to cancel the shutdown (so that the backup can run), and have then the Reflect backup plan shutdown when the backup is complete. Note that the application would have to be smart enough to allow the shutdown issued by Reflect.
Software Zen: delete this;
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AOMEI costed +/-60.00 € coming with free for life updates.
Even it would be a fun program to do, it is not worth the effort for that amount of money.
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I stopped using Acronis years ago after a series of progressively worse UI changes. I just used whatever was built into WHS for years aferwards.
In prep for retiring my WHS NAS for something else I setup VEEAM based on recommendations from elsenet. Other than one poorly handled nuisance issue that only happened saving to WHS but not the Synology (something on the WHS box would touch the file midbackup once a week and veeam would freak out and send an email before successfully retrying overnight) it's worked great. My only current complaint is that even at max compression it's daily/monthly snapshots grew the amount of space it was using way faster than WHSs black box did (I'm guessing file vs block level backup and large outlook mailboxes, or not being as smart with temp files).
Trying something else for comparison had been on my TODO for a few months, but I've never gotten around to setting it up. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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can AOMEI handle UEFI? I doubt it. Best test your backups.
UEFI sounds like a good idea, bit it will *elephant* you.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Isn't UEFI something related to BIOS?
What has this to do with backups?
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PMJI: If your backup uses bootable recovery media for disaster recovery, it may need configuring for EFI/UEFI. Mine does.
>64
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Ok, no, it's only backupping important data, no OS, no disaster recovery...
Not needed there, but in the other hand, that data is very important.
Thanks for clarifying.
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Disaster recovery from an external bootable device, prepared by the backup application.
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OK, I'm not worried about that, I am only interested in saving the data, reinstalling everything in that computer would be super easy, but the data itself would be a disaster if would be lost.
Thanks for the explanation.
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There is this old saying: Backups always work for 50%. That means the backup.
It helps to test the restore functionality for whatever is needed, files, folders or entire disks.
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Joan, sorry busy week. Let me explain.
UEFI came along because BIOS was not able to prevent root kit injections of malware. Anyone here can correct me, but after researching it a bit (2 weeks of late nights) this is my conclusion. Insert Microsoft to make it even worse. Then add in the TPM hardware... to make a long story short, you cannot easily clone a drive that boots in a UEFI enabled system. What I experienced was that *none* of the backup s/w companies understood it. It was completely hopeless.
You can't even image the damn things - the new drive won't boot. I was trying to move my wife's laptop from a spinner to an SSD - UEFI made it impossible. My new laptop (4 yo now) came with UEFI disabled. I called them up and asked - hey why is this off? "It's not worth the trouble."
I'm an independent consultant. For my to lose a primary boot drive is a catastrophe. This happened to me in 2004. This is long before UEFI or TPM. I have no time to spend long times of recovering backup files at the whim of the backup s/w. I sure as hell can't spend a week reinstalling s/w. For me a backup not only includes data but the complete OS. So I bought a SATA disk imaging device, an extra SATA drive or two. I would pull the active HD from the laptop, pop it into the image device and push copy. Perfect image. Booted every time. Simple.
Technology moves on. I bought my wife what I thought was a nice ASUS laptop. It was so loaded with bloatware, and the spinner was so slow, the laptop was useless (and it's a core i5 with 16GB of ram). I thought I would just image the spinner to an SSD. Won't boot. Welcome to UEFI hell. ASUS had no idea, Microsoft was being Microsoft, I ended up re-installing Win10 fresh on the SSD.
So, nightly data backups of non OS stuff, these s/w programs might be good enough. Image an OS? Be prepared for pain. It took me a week of work to image my NVMe drive, but it did not have UEFI.
Test your backups
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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WOW!
Had no idea... anyway, in this case the computer is not a critical system, only my mother's PC. Files there are important though, therefore, I need only data backup, she has only Windows and Office installed, a virtual machine which attacks the relevant data in the SSD.
Therefore I can recover it all by reinstalling windows (during boot I should do it easily given it is a Lenovo with the recovery image preloaded) and reinstalling Office.
Anyway, now I understand what you said, and wow... It is amazing to see how things get worse over time.
Thanks for the explanation!
![Beer | [beer]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif)
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Yep, I have Acronis from many years, and they go worst every year more... I think the better version was around 2003. Up to the last year I did a disk clone every month, and when I needed it I found it was not working because was missing the partition table... I was very disappointed... Many years ago it just worked with one click.
Now they have a ton of features, and are very pricey, but they cannot be compared to other free-version, the free version are much better and reliable, but the UI is worst. Bad decision when you focus on the UI instead of the functionality...
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Yay! I saw this yesterday. It's definitely on my watch list.
"When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others; same thing when you are stupid."
Ignorant - An individual without knowledge, but is willing to learn.
Stupid - An individual without knowledge and is incapable of learning.
Idiot - An individual without knowledge and allows social media to do the thinking for them.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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Take in ? (4,4)
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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HOOD WINK?
I dunno ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Nice try but nope
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I was thinking of that too, but as with OG's guess, it's spelled as a single word.
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