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RugbyLeague14-Aug-15 1:21

14-Aug-15 1:21

If you did the "upgrade" you can revert to the previous Windows version very easily - I reverted my home PC to Win 7 last night - took about an hour but was a fully automated process

Do not escape reality : improve reality !

Rage14-Aug-15 1:25

Rage

14-Aug-15 1:25

Formatting the hard drive first helped a lot, I guess.

RugbyLeague14-Aug-15 1:26

14-Aug-15 1:26

Eh?

Do not escape reality : improve reality !

Rage14-Aug-15 1:30

Rage

14-Aug-15 1:30

I was trying to make a fun statement by telling that you reverted but first lost all your data.
I should have added ten joke icons.

RugbyLeague14-Aug-15 1:31

14-Aug-15 1:31

I suspected as much but one can never be too careful Smile | :)

OriginalGriff14-Aug-15 1:33

14-Aug-15 1:33

You trust Microsoft that much? Laugh | :laugh:

I took a AOMEI disk image of the whole HDD the night before the upgrade just to be sure I could revert to exactly what I had, so if I do "Go back" that's the path I'll take.

But at the moment, I'm trying to struggle through and get to like this ~~steaming pile of cow manure~~ new operating system, if only because I know there will be quite a few people who I'll have to support who'll be using it and I don't want to have to tell them "sod off, you're on your own with that!"

But it is making itself extremely difficult to like: two whole days wasted so far, and yet to find anything I prefer compared to Win 7. Better than Win 8, but that's like saying I prefer my excrement polished to a mirror finish...

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

RugbyLeague14-Aug-15 1:36

14-Aug-15 1:36

There was nothing on there I couldn't recover easily by other means Smile | :)

pkfox14-Aug-15 3:00

14-Aug-15 3:00

Griff , have you got the paid version of AOMEI ?

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff14-Aug-15 3:05

14-Aug-15 3:05

Nope, just the free "Standard 2.8" - works fine so far.
I might even upgrade it to 3.1 once I'm happy with the PC. Big Grin | :-D

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

pkfox15-Aug-15 0:12

15-Aug-15 0:12

Ok thanks, where do you store the images ?

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff15-Aug-15 0:45

15-Aug-15 0:45

On a external USB HDD: I have a bunch of 2TB / 4TB Seagate drives (Amazon[^] & Amazon[^]) which AOMEI will store multiple images on (unlike MS which overwrites each time)
My 1TB PC HDD is partitioned 50/50 Apps and Data, and the whole thing compresses to around 350GB per image.

(Being a backup freak, I also have images on my NAS, thumb drives, and anywhere else I can safely hide them! Laugh | :laugh:

)

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

pkfox16-Aug-15 1:45

16-Aug-15 1:45

Ok thanks Griff, one more question - what type of backup should I use to take a snapshot of the entire computer ? I'm a little unsure of the menu options

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff16-Aug-15 2:46

16-Aug-15 2:46

Start here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tipdoprw6kwct5h/1%20Menu.jpg?dl=0[^]
Then select https://www.dropbox.com/s/5m72ho5jdszkugd/2%20Select.jpg?dl=0[^]
Click here https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3y6f4esw1t3d6z/3%20Click.jpg?dl=0[^]
Click "Add" https://www.dropbox.com/s/gzom7ysv9e6cnai/4%20Add.jpg?dl=0[^]
Select the destination https://www.dropbox.com/s/itretl9fy0qtqf4/5%20Destination.jpg?dl=0[^]
And start the backup https://www.dropbox.com/s/qutdpljc27d02dz/6%20Start.jpg?dl=0[^]

It'll take a while, depending on how fast you media is (A thumb drive will take all night as they tend to be slow to write).

Then make a recovery disk via Utilities...Create Bootable Media.

The things I like about this is that you can store more than one backup, and you can mount backups as drives to recover individual files, as well as restoring them as an absolute disk image.

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

pkfox16-Aug-15 5:10

16-Aug-15 5:10

Cheers Griff - how do you mount a drive to recover a file ?

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff16-Aug-15 5:54

16-Aug-15 5:54

Easy:
Utilities: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tbvjycdx7r3kj4x/1%20Utilities.jpg?dl=0[^]
Select folder holding backup points: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h4kcj09wnnm01p5/2%20Select%20folder.jpg?dl=0[^]
Select the back point: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0q1vtdhjas4srbe/3%20Select%20backup.jpg?dl=0[^]
Select the partition(s) and the drive letter(s) you want: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1usk1yllihsa2l6/4%20Select%20partition.jpg?dl=0[^]
And it tells you how to dismount it as well: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lmjw7gd4i3j154p/5%20done.jpg?dl=0[^]

Now the backup just appears as a normal disk, so you can select any files you want.

If you want to torch the disk (or recreate it on a spare disk the same size) you just do a normal "restore" operation and it recreates all the partitions, MBR, and suchlike.

I like this thing - it's pretty easy to use, and it seems to work well.

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

pkfox16-Aug-15 9:11

16-Aug-15 9:11

Impressive thanks very much for your time

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff16-Aug-15 9:33

16-Aug-15 9:33

You're welcome!

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

pkfox17-Aug-15 0:11

17-Aug-15 0:11

Hi Griff, I followed your instructions and created a disk image but am having problems creating a bootable media,I'm trying to use a usb stick as the media and it fails at the formatting boot part ( that was trying to create a Windows PE one ) In the end having tried several usb sticks I tried a Linux one and that worked in as much as it boots but I can't see a way to select the path to my backup image ( it's on my LAN ) I've tried typing the UNC path but "lots of nothing happened" any ideas ? I suppose I should start a thread on this somewhere else ?

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff17-Aug-15 0:25

17-Aug-15 0:25

I haven't tried on mine - I've only the one USB stick and I can't recycle that at the moment as it's bootable for MS backup.

But the AOMEI web site has some instructions[^]

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

pkfox17-Aug-15 1:01

17-Aug-15 1:01

Ok thanks, do I need to create bootable media to restore a backup ?( I assumed I did as I didn't think you could flash a mounted drive ) the system seems to be able to restore it without one ( although I did back out at the last minute so maybe it reboots into a shell ) Sorry to pester you Big Grin | :-D

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff17-Aug-15 1:25

17-Aug-15 1:25

You can't restore a system image over a boot drive - the os has nowhere to go, poor thing - but you can restore files from an AOMEI image, or from it's other backup / restore system (I haven't played with that too much, because I was rolling my own backup-to-zip system in my copious spare time but maybe it'll do what I wanted instead).

Even the MS image needs a bootable CD / USB to restore.

I just sacrificed by USB stick following the AMOEI instructions and it wrote it fine - I'll try booting from it later when my PC finishes a couple of long tasks it is running.

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

pkfox17-Aug-15 1:41

17-Aug-15 1:41

So you created a Windows Bootable Media on your usb stick from the application ?

We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP

OriginalGriff17-Aug-15 2:48

17-Aug-15 2:48

UltraISO, yes. Not from within AOMEI itself (I don't want to install the kits it needs on my PC at the moment).

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...

newton.saber14-Aug-15 1:40

newton.saber

14-Aug-15 1:40

Would you happen to know what caused this to occur?

You are really making me afraid of Windows 10.

OriginalGriff14-Aug-15 2:01