Reliable Free Backup Software

I know Macrium Reflect is no longer offering their backup software free. I had been using Macrium Reflect Free for quite a while, but now I am using System Image to backup my system. Is there any other free software comparable to Macrium Reflect Free than isn't from China? I would rather rely on System Image backups rather than trust Chinese software.

Thanks

Try Aomei Backupper.

TexasBandit said:

I know Macrium Reflect is no longer offering their backup software free.

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You could try either of these - AOMEI Backupper or R-DRIVE IMAGE

Why not use Macrium free? It still works. Download Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - MajorGeeks

Or the oldest and most reliable of all backup software, "Ghost".
I've been using it since 1997, and it still works GREAT!

It's available if you just look for it. I found the ISO for the boot disk on the web one day while searching for "Ghost 11.5".

The Broadcom company got it and wrapped it in a Windows shell. It runs exactly the same as the old DOS version that I still use.
Both versions, run from a bootable disk or Flash Drive, totally bypassing the OS, whether Windows or Linux.

After downloading the ISO, I used Rufus to burn the ISO to a Flash Drive, which I could then use to boot up my PC and run Ghost.
This version of Ghost can be run using a keyboard or mouse. I prefer the mouse.
The program has two basic options, to back up a single partition, or en entire drive. I use the Disk to Disk option when I'm Cloning a drive.
Or the Partition to Image option when just making a backup image of my C: drive.

Since Macrium Reflect Free (v.8) is no longer easily available, I've changed my senior citizen students to Aomei Backupper Free.

My reasoning is that most of the Windows 11 Forum gurus tend to recommend it second to Macrium Reflect.

Also, I find that Aomei Professional (the paid version) is occasionally free from Shareware On Sale . com. My students and I got it a couple or three weeks ago!

I've changed my senior citizen students to Aomei Backupper....from Shareware On Sale

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comss often has it.

Aomei backupper is a good choice nice and easy.

@TechnoMage2021

your favourite is here:

SIW2 said:

@TechnoMage2021

your favourite is here:

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Methinks that hot mess is a bit above my pay grade!

I have Macrium Free on my System Two and just used it last night to restore. Worked perfectly.

Scott said:

I have Macrium Free on my System Two and just used it last night to restore. Worked perfectly.

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Yes, it will continue to work as designed; however, there won't be any updates to the free version.

Also, it will be harder to find on the Internet.

Wynona said:

Also, it will be harder to find on the Internet.

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If you bookmark the url for the download agent...

https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v8/ReflectDLHF.exe

...you can get it direct from the Macrium servers. It seems unlikely to be removed any time soon. Reflect Free v7 is still up there, I've just tested downloading it to check...

I know one that is free and isn't from China, BUT... it isn't comparable to Macrium Reflect Free by any stretch. That's just because it is almost a thousand times better than Macrium Reflect Free so probably not worth mentioning on here.

hdmi said:

I know one that is free and isn't from China, BUT... it isn't comparable to Macrium Reflect Free by any stretch. That's just because it is almost a thousand times better than Macrium Reflect Free so probably not worth mentioning on here.

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I give up, what is it?

Perhaps they prefer to make their backups from within windows.

Scott said:

I have Macrium Free on my System Two and just used it last night to restore. Worked perfectly.

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Congratulations. I just restored the thing I have been playing with here

altaylor said:

I give up, what is it?

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First, download and install Ventoy on a USB flash drive... if you haven't already done that. Next, download this ISO file and just copy it to the USB flash drive:
Finally, boot from the USB flash drive and go from there. To be able to do this, you might need to disable Secure Boot. Also make sure that BitLocker is turned off on the drive that holds the partitions you want to be included in your image. If it's taking a bit long before it moves to the next menu screen after you click, then simply unplugging the network cable from the back of the PC before you continue to boot from the USB flash drive should fix that problem.

The only reliable way to make a backup of your Windows system partition is to make sure that the instance of Windows, that has been installed on this partition, is shut down first. It means that, when Windows is actively running on the system, you can still make a reliable backup of a different Windows partition, if you have one. Otherwise you simply can't. That's just because snaphots were never designed to be reliable backups. Instead, they're just data. Sure, you can make reliable backup copies of any data you might have, but that doesn't magically turn your data into reliable backups. In addition to this, just because you are able to restore from an image, doesn't necessarily always mean that the data that is contained in the image is free from errors. Inconsistencies may have crept in at the time when the snapshot was still being created. Each time when the VSS service that is running on Windows creates a new snapshot, it informs other processes actively running on the system, that they should finish up on doing whatever it is that they are doing to the filesystem that could potentially cause these inconsistencies. In no way does this guarantee that all processes will take the appropriate actions and finish operation tasks, both successfully and in a timely fashion. There exists no verification method to this. Just because you are still able to boot into your Windows normally after you restore from image and all your apps still seem to be working OK, doesn't make it a reliable method in any way, shape or form. As most people never have troubles with it, most people continue to imagine that it is a reliable method. As a result, I call it imagining software. If you mean what I get... lol

Isn't most of your laptop made in China?

I downloaded Macrium Reflect Free from https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v8/ReflectDLHF.exe above, and the download went fine. The backup seems fine, but when I tried a restore, the driver iaStorVD could not load. That's the same error I got before. I guess there is some reason why the driver isn't loading, but I don't know what it is. I guess for now, I am going to use System Image for my backup. When I have time, I may give Aomei Backupper Free a try.

Thanks for all the replies.

Well, I've just successfully backed up to a .vhdx file, then restored to another machine without the aid of any of the conventional imaging solutions (Chinese or otherwise).

The free backup tool I chose is supplied by Microsoft, it's SysInternals' Disk2vhd. A .vhdx file can be mounted as a virtual drive and explored, so individual files could be recovered, if needed.

The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows 'Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion.

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It can use VSS so can be run from within a running Windows. You can select which partition(s) to back up. This was a backup of an MBR machine so that was System Reserved, C:\ and the recovery partition (shown here as [No Label]).



Note the 'Space Required' column, only the sectors in use will be copied to the .vhdx. There is no compression though, so the .vhdx will be about the same size as the used space of the drive being imaged (same size as a 'Backup & Restore (Windows 7)' system image). Typically a Macrium Reflect image of the same drive could be up to 50% smaller.

hdmi said:

The only reliable way to make a backup of your Windows system partition is to make sure that the instance of Windows, that has been installed on this partition, is shut down first.

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Disk2vhd can be run from a bootable WinRE recovery USB, so offline backups can be done too.

For the restore I used MiniTool Partition Wizard. My rather elderly version 9.1 can also be run in WinRE (I guess newer versions can too apparently not unless you pay, see post #33)

MiniTool Solution Ltd. is a Canadian company.....

I made a recovery drive (without including system files) and copied Disk2vhd and MiniTools to it. Then I booted from this to a Command Prompt.

The first step in the restore was to mount the .vhdx created by Disk2vhd. I used the the command START DISKPART to open Diskpart in a second window to do this. The Diskpart commands are Select vdisk file=<full path to .vhdx> then ATTACH VDISK.

Partition Wizard can now be run from the command prompt. I used its Copy Disk Wizard to copy the mounted virtual disk to the PC's HDD.



The final (and vital) step was to create the BCD boot entry, without which the HDD won't boot. In the WinRE command prompt I used the command bootrec /RebuildBCD

Being now on totally different hardware, at first boot Windows went through installing new drivers, restarted, then booted to a fully restored and functional Windows.