Backing up my full computer

How would i backup my whole computer just in case of anything to external hard drive? My laptop has an SSD drive. Whats the best way to back up? First time.

There's a poll on imaging and back up software that gives a list of programs you can use. But basically you want to make an image of your drive onto an external hard drive. Then if you ever lose everything or the drive fails, you just restore the image. There are various other ways to back up regularly as well - some more sophisticated than others. A good idea to back up personal files separately as well. So for those you can just copy and paste them to an external drive (but you need a different external drive for images as that needs to be set to ntfs - the same as the drive in the computer). Whichever program you decide to use, it has the facility to make a recovery drive on a usb stick. So if you ever need to restore the image you made, you use the recovery usb to enable the image to restore.

I make an image of the computer set up from new with all the programs you want installed. That's a basic image to get you back and set up and then you can re-install all your files. Another alternative, if a drive fails and you have to replace it, is do a clean install of windows but then you need to reinstall all your programs again.

Macrium is very popular. Maybe try a couple and see which one you like using best. I'm currently using EaseUs Todo.

bryan123 said:

How would i backup my whole computer just in case of anything to external hard drive? My laptop has an SSD drive. Whats the best way to back up? First time.

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In being partial there are many choices out in the market that will back up your system just fine, not just Macrium.

You just need to have an understanding of what you wish to accomplish - do you need an image or data backup program? Yes, some will do both, but some will better suit to a particular task - for me, I prefer Acronis for data backups, but for disk imaging, Macrium.

Example when I reinstall my OS, I simply install Acronis and restore the data I backed up (Documents, Photos, Music, etc) back to the OS. If I'm going to be doing say some disk maintenance, I create a disk image so if something happens, I can restore the OS and all its contents back without having to reinstall the OS and all its data.

Point is there are many choices to choose from based on what your philosophy (choice) is.

Here's but one read, but like anything else not all will agree. Anyway I post not for the point of getting you to chose one of those but to pay more attention to the "What to look for in backup software" section. Again, not all inclusive, but a good basis - Best Windows backup software 2021: Free and paid options reviewed

Good Luck.