Comprehensive Backing up of Personal Files - 10 to 11

Hi All,

Asking the community for guidance.

Elders in the community are asking me to help them move from win 10 machines to win 11 ones.

They have been storing their personal files all over the place: desktop, My documents folder, folders on the C:\ drive. Absolutely all over the place.

Now I just want to do right by them.

How process should I follow to get a comprehensive backup of all their personal files (anywhere on their Windows 10 machine), and not miss any?

With Thanks,

KingDing

Consider making free or pay backup images:

(Acronis, Aoemi, EaseUS, Hasleo, Macrium, Paragon, etc.)

Macrium is widely used in Ten Forums.

Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything
Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

There has been multiple threads using Hasleo.

Do you intend to do this for them?

Or do you intend to teach them how to do it themselves?

Will this backup procedure be run regularly in the future, or is this more of a one-time deal where they will put the backups on a shelf and carry on as before?

It's one thing to have a backup. It might well be another thing to expect "elders in the community" to find and restore their files from a backup, particularly if those files are not in a very ordinary folder tree. But I don't know the nature of your target audience.

I'm wondering if some initial time might be best spent in getting your elders organized, where their files are NOT "absolutely all over the place". If that is done, the backup process itself might be much easier overall.

You could of course just make an image of everyone's hard drive. Not sure about the learning curve on that, particularly if you expect them to do it themselves....

if the systems are that cluttered it maybe worthwhile installing a new drive on each of the systems
then the old drive will have all the required data still intact that can be transferred to the new drive.

if there are several systems involved it maybe easier to do a clean install rather then try and upgrade
also all the required drivers for that system would be on the old drive along with the data.

just me thinking out load.
best of luck, Steve ..

Create an image of the drive (a single file which contains all data on particular drive)
Macrium Reflect (freeware version is still available from majorgeeks web site)
This image can be re-mounted to access/recover any files

It's incredible to note the number of files that never are required further with this method, compared to copying every single user file from one system/device to a new one. Waste of time and waste of space if some files are never going to be required again.

Alternataively (or as well) you could search the drive(s) and copy all files across to a single location (i.e. search for *.doc? files - that will identify all MS Word files, search for *.xls? files - that will identify all MS Excel files, search for all *.jpg files - that will identify all jpg image files, etc etc and so on. This method will identify all files no mater where they are stored

Then you can just copy all the files to the new location/device

EDIT With all due respect, I'm concerned that you've been tasked with this project, and you have to ask for advice. I would suggest that more experienced hands-on/face-to-face guidance might be beneficial

What I'd recommend to make life a lot easier is to organize your personal files in one place. I have my Windows boot drive dedicated to Windows, and a separate logical data drive. My programs are all installed on C:, but all my personal data files are on D:. This makes protecting your data a whole lot easier going forward. If you have a total loss of everything on the computer but you have your data files on a couple different backup media types you're all set. You can rebuild Windows and install applications but getting back your original files whatever they be could be much more painful without good backups!

I also separate archives like application installation files my music collection etc. on different logical drives.

Fishmill said:

Do you intend to do this for them?

Or do you intend to teach them how to do it themselves?

Will this backup procedure be run regularly in the future, or is this more of a one-time deal where they will put the backups on a shelf and carry on as before?

It's one thing to have a backup. It might well be another thing to expect "elders in the community" to find and restore their files from a backup, particularly if those files are not in a very ordinary folder tree. But I don't know the nature of your target audience.

I'm wondering if some initial time might be best spent in getting your elders organized, where their files are NOT "absolutely all over the place". If that is done, the backup process itself might be much easier overall.

You could of course just make an image of everyone's hard drive. Not sure about the learning curve on that, particularly if you expect them to do it themselves....

Click to expand...

KingDing said:

They have been storing their personal files all over the place: desktop, My documents folder, folders on the C:\ drive. Absolutely all over the place.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Why are you putting the onus of their data on your own shoulders and making it somehow your responsibility?
You tell them you have 14 days to move EVERYTHING that is important into the following folders:
- Your desktop folder
- Your documents folder
- Your pictures folder
- your videos / music / 3D / etc folders

I would *NOT* recommend migrating the downloads folder. As 99.37% of the time, users never even miss the files.
I simply tell them any important documents or spreadsheets or PDF in the downloads needs to be put in a folder on the desktop or sorted in their documents.

This is such a strange question to be asking.
If your data is not in the above folders, the data will not be migrated (excluding your Outlook profile data, Yadnex/Chrome/Firefox/Edge/IE/Brave browser profile data). etc.

DONE! Happy days


This is the ONLY way to "do it right by them". If they aren't interested in you volunteering to help (as I volunteer IT services and web/etc for several charities) and spending some time to organise their own data, then the data is simply not important.

This isn't a solution. OP wants an app to magically move all files scattered on the drive into the documents.
Migrating data to network drives, or partitions, is performed when the system is setup. It is far too laborious performing this when you are volunteering and performing it on multiple computers.
What if you miss some data?

@KingDing Always emphasise that data is the client's responsibility. Make your life easier and encourage good habits - the client will appreciate it!
Give concise instructions of what the users need to do, where anything of importance needs moving to, and strictly specify which application data that will be backed up and not need to worry about. Also request they communicate if any apps do not work and may require attention prior to migration.
ALSO, you need to ascertain any custom software these users are utilising. eg. Quickbooks, MYOB, Adobe Photo gallery, Lotus Notes, iTunes or music catalogue customisations, etc.

gunrunnerjohn said:

What I'd recommend to make life a lot easier is to organize your personal files in one place. I have my Windows boot drive dedicated to Windows, and a separate logical data drive. My programs are all installed on C:, but all my personal data files are on D:. This makes protecting your data a whole lot easier going forward. If you have a total loss of everything on the computer but you have your data files on a couple different backup media types you're all set. You can rebuild Windows and install applications but getting back your original files whatever they be could be much more painful without good backups!

I also separate archives like application installation files my music collection etc. on different logical drives.

Click to expand...