Computer Backup

Typically yes. But you can have software like Reflect set to back up different drives (or files/folders) independently but according to a schedule for example. So if you have a backup drive you can have those three drives back up to independent backup “sets” - one “set” per drive. And that can be automatic and scheduled.

Macrium Reflect allows you to do that. And I guess Windows as well (?).

What you say : the main backup is the C drive with all the programsoftware on it and the OS.
The Systemcopy in W10 makes ONE imagefile of your entirely C-drive.
All other Data like VST sounds, Audio projects, Office-Data etc. I put on other internal HDD’s, and those Drives I backup manually on external USB drives.
Before W7 you had to use third party backup sopftware, but since W7 it has its own great backup function.
IN W10 it is still calleed “W7 backup” .

In the menu of the backup/systemcopy in W10, there is a function to burn a CD/DVD which automaticly puts a small W10 on it, so you can Boot with this. Then this W10 version opens and you can select to make a systemrecovery and point it to the place on a drive where you made the Systemcopy.
SO always first make this Disc, then perform a systemcopy.
WHen you want to test if this works and you have an empty SSD/HDD lying around, then put this one briefly in your PC and perform the recovery.
It wil put your first Cdrive on the new one (offcourse that drive has to have minimal the same storingcapacity).

So if I get this right:

  1. create recovery media (optical or USB)
  2. image whole system (C) drive to other media (backup disk)

To restore;

  1. boot from recovery media
  2. point to the drive in #2 above
  3. point to new target drive and rebuild original there.

Correct?

Or you can go to settings-update and security then to recovery then under advanced startup click on restart now. That will take you to a menu where you can recover from a system image that has been stored on a different drive.

Ok, but were the steps I outlined correc?

Basically Yes. The way I described does not require booting from recovery disk. Keep in mind the system image will be the entire system drive. In my case C Drive.My C drive is over 400 GB. So the only practical way is to have a large backup drive. I use a 1 TB M.2 NVME SSD Drive for System (C) and a 1TB M.2 NVME SSD for image to be stored on. I typically do a system image once a week or if any major update is installed.

So you boot from the disk that will become the new system disk?

Of course.

My advice is tp keep your c drive as small as possible.
That way making backups saves a lot of time and so is the restoring offcourse.
I do not know what you guys have on the c to come up with 400 gb’s
Mine has about 125 gb total of storage on C, and believe me i have a lot of software going on there, because i use my PC not only for studiowork.
But f.e. Cubase’s vst sounds, arturia vsti’s etc. are all moved to a different drive.

Yes they are. But indeed you can restore your c drive from within the backup menu.
To do it with the cd/dvd is in case your drive is broken or windows crashed
But i always use the restore CD, just being used to that

Sorry if I am being dumb, but can I use the Windows Backup to back up a C drive system image by burning the image on a CD/DVD? (Rather than savng to a separate hard drive).

No, windows10 alone is about 30Gb, so the whole C drive with programs on it and windows included is very large, and only fits on a harddrive or large usb stick

OK thanks. So the next question is that I have a backup hard drive (USB linked separately) which backs up all my projects and has a spare !50Gb or so. Can I put a separate folder or somesuch on it to back up the C drive image?

If your c drive software is less than 50 gb…

Ah OK, makes sense.

My C drive is 85Gb and I had an idea to use a 128Gb USB stick to store the system image. However, even though I have formatted it to NFTS, Windows tells me “The drive is not a valid backup location”. Anyone know why?

If you just want to clone your system drive you can use the free version of Macrium Reflect. I’m pretty sure you can create an image from it. Of course the way that works is that if you have a problem you need to read off of that disk and write onto a new, clean drive to restore the system. But that’s at least one way of doing it.

Thanks. I have a rule of not loading more software than necessary on my music computer and as Windows has the backup facility I thought it sensible to use it. However, I still don’t understand why it does not like a USB stick as opposed to a separate hard drive.

It says in the web that the windows backup tool does not support usb flash drives

Hmm. I wonder why?