Alternative to Macrium and Aomei Backupper - Free editions

SIW2 said:

wbadmin start backup . creates an image in the vhdx format stored on the backuptarget you specify

example:

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the enable backup command allows you to set a daily schedule. It was added fairly recently, it is in win11, not sure if win10 has the scheduling

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wbadmin start backup

Reference article for the wbadmin start backup command, which creates a backup using specified parameters.

docs.microsoft.com

One way to restore the image is to use wbadmin start recovery. Obviously recovery has to be done from outside your windows installation , from booted winre or boot.wim The wbadmin recovery commands are a bit fiddly for beginners. However because the format is vhdx, there are other ways to access and/or restore from it.

wbadmin start recovery

Reference article for the wbadmin start recovery command, which runs a recovery operation based on the parameters that you specify.

docs.microsoft.com

you can get help by typing wbadmin /? at an admin cmd prompt

wbamin.exe in win11 is bigger than earlier versions.

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i tried "wbadmin start backup -backuptarget:E: -include:C: -allcritical" but it says "The backup storage location is invalid. You cannot use a volume that is included in the backup as a storage location".. but for me D: and E: are completely different drives where i have downloads, documents and games.. doesnt make any sense

"wbadmin start backup -backuptarget:E: -include:C: -allcritical"

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If C is your current os partition you dont need to include it twice.

-allcritical will already include it

it says destination is invalid cannot be used bc its critical volume..

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try a different destination using -allcritical

example

wbadmin start backup -backuptarget Z: -allcritical

then it wil list the critical volumes it wants and ask you to confirm if you want to start the backup

See if it lists E as one of them

SIW2 said:

If C is your current os partition you dont need to include it twice.

-allcritical will already include it


try a different destination using -allcritical

example

wbadmin start backup -backuptarget Z: -allcritical

then it wil list the critical volumes it wants and ask you to confirm if you want to start the backup

See if it lists E as one of them

Click to expand...

This can only happen to me LOL.. i tried Z: just says destination doesnt exist..

Yes you need to pick a valid destination that is different from E

then when you do -allcritical it will tell you what it wants to backup.

See if it wants to backup E when you do that.

SIW2 said:

Yes you need to pick a valid destination that is different from E

then when you do -allcritical it will tell you what it wants to backup.

See if it wants to backup E when you do that.

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so you are saying with this method i can backup only to USB and not on internal drives?

No. we are trying to find out why you got that message

It might be it was confused when you tried to include C twice, or it might be you made a typo without realizing, or it might be that E does contain something that wbadmin thinks is needed, or it might be something else.

You could also try copying and pasting this and see if you get the same message


wbadmin start backup -backuptarget:E: -allcritical

SIW2 said:

No. we are trying to find out why you got that message

It might be it was confused when you tried to include C twice, or it might be you made a typo without realizing, or it might be that E does contain something that wbadmin thinks is needed, or it might be something else.

You could also try copying and pasting this and see if you get the same message


wbadmin start backup -backuptarget:E: -allcritical

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restarted computer copy-pasted and got literally same message.. dont tell me its bc downloads location is put E: ...

dont tell me its bc downloads location is put E: ...

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do you mean you moved your userfolders or some of them?

That might be it. If so, then the -allcritical is not suitable for what you are trying to do.

Instead, you can select each volume you want to include.

SIW2 said:

do you mean you moved your userfolders or some of them?

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Changed location for Documents and Downloads

Closer inspection of Evorim reveals that the restore I did restored only the windows partition. The existing esp partition was untouched.
That could be a problem in some scenarios.

Having a look inside the image at the allegedly backed up esp:

SIW2 said:

My preferred method is baccking up to a .wim using wimlib. It is not for everybody.

Quite nice Evorim has the restore to different hardware function . Not an independent module unfortunately, but it is something not often found in free versions.

That is assuming it works in the free version. Maybe it doesnt and you need to stump up for it. I should have ticked it during the restore to see if just went ahead , or if it would prompt to buy the pro version.

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Restore to different hardware isn't such a problem for Windows any more - especially if using vhdx physical files.

Simply just copy the vhdx file from old to new hardware using any utility you like - even file explorer and then apply the bootloader to a primary efi boot file via bcdboot.

I often perform a Virtual to Physical conversion this way often to quite different hardware to the original machine I created the VM on - but you don't need to use VM's to use this method. So long as you have a functioning Internet Windows is quite good at fetching any specific drivers these days in most cases.

vhdx files on decent hardware don't reduce performance by anything even remotely noticeable if using ssd's or nvme type disks and you can have several windows installs on the same disk. simply create 1 efi partition, optionally 1 msr partition and then the rest of the disk as a single non efi std partition. (or use different disks / external or internal for the vhdx files -. The trick is you only need one single EFI file for the main boot -- and at boot time you'll get the standard Windows coloured boot menu (with a default if you prefer).

All these people flogging paid for things to create WindowstoGo type stuff or "Easy bootable menus" are really just peddling things to people who with about 3 commands could do it themselves with bog standard windows commands. I suspect those paid products are some sort of "wrapper" around this process.

The two tools of note here are dism /Apply-Image and bcdboot with possibly bcdedit. learn how to use those and "you are in business".

For Non tech people who need to backup (or more likely possibly recover) data then I agree a decent fool proof menu with a sensible GUI is perfectly OK but I doubt whether "Old Grandma" as some people call her - is going to be in the business of messing around with various Windows builds etc. !!!!.

However whatever your mechanisms - you can't have too much backup - so any method that works and is reliable is OK.

cheers
jimbo

Cromax said:

Is there any way to backup system disk without using third party software or old win 7 backup..

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dism /capture-image or have the whole windows system as a vhdx file and just save it with file explorer.

Cheers
jimbo

I'll pass on it.

jimbo45 said:

dism /capture-image

Cheers
jimbo

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That is only one volume at a time.
I prefer wimlib because it is quicker and because the append command works nicley with the create option.
This means if you point it at an existing wim , it will append. If there is no existing wim it creates one.

Aomei hangup my entire system when I try to take system backup now I dont have any other option but Macriumbut it does not have incremental backup

William654 said:

Aomei hangup my entire system when I try to take system backup now I dont have any other option but Macriumbut it does not have incremental backup

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That's not normal behavior for Aomei. It would seem to point to something awry with your system.

Badger said:

That's not normal behavior for Aomei. It would seem to point to something awry with your system.

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it does not even able to create incremental backup from folder. I dont know what happean to this tool, it was working fine before.

William654 said:

it does not even able to create incremental backup from folder. I dont know what happean to this tool, it was working fine before.

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Uninstall it with something like Revo Uninstaller and reinstall to see if that fixes it.

Badger said:

Uninstall it with something like Revo Uninstaller and reinstall to see if that fixes it.

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tried that also contacted support they dont know.