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I use a back up drive on the computer I want everything on that. Then I use SyncBack Pro to copy this drive to 3 external drives. I set SyncBack Pro to Mirror the drive to the external 3 drives, If I delete something off the internal drive, this will delete the file from the external drives. 1 lesson taught me to have more than 1 external backup when both the internal and the external drives crashed... nasty!!! Thanks Leo.

Nice one Leo, thanks a ton for breaking down backup strategies so clearly. Your video confirmed I’m on track with image and data backups, and the three-two-one rule. Feeling way more confident about keeping my data safe now!

He stopped using Google Search but used Google Adsense to profit from his CZcams channel. Weird.

Dear Dr Leo, thank you for this excellent article on the importance of having UAC settings “ON”, and on the correct level. My problem … I inadvertently reset my only Windows 11 User Account from “Administrator” to “Standard User”! So now, for many actions, the UAC pop/up has the “YES” button missing, just the “NO” shows. Have tried resetting using ‘Safe Mode’ & creating an ‘Administrator’ Account’, but alas to no avail … At 84 y.o., this is a challenge indeed. I have checked your site for a method to reset a User Account to Administrator, but cannot find one. This article mentions, but not say how. Once again thank you for your useful articles, over the years. Dr Leo, can you please help how to recove the Administrator status for my User Account? Cheers and best regards David P Steele

Great video clear & concise. You've helped me loads Thank You. Have now subscribed

I usually get the popup for a single program which I know is safe. Yet there seems to be no way to designate a particular app as safe so at least I don't get nagged every time I fire it up.

👍👍 JimE

I use Macrium Reflect to make backups of my system drive to an external- and a portable drive. I use Backup4All to backup data to the external drive, the portable drive and OneDrive. So I have 4 copies of each file in 4 different locations. Frequently I test the backup and restore a few files. And when I leave my home for a longer time I take the portable drive with me. Luckily I haven't lost a single file in over 25 years.

What do you think about Psono? Psono is an open-source self-hosted password manager. On-premise or SAAS.

Can confirm Windows11 system image restore will leave your PC partially unusable. After MS stuffed up my mailbox pst files after a recent update and would not let me aggregate my accounts into a single pst file, after trying to solve it for 10 hours I decided the easiest would be to restore the entire OS to a **system image** of the C drive taken not two weeks ago. All appeared to go well and the PC was mostly working after the *successful* restore... BUT: interestingly Chrome, Vivaldi, Avase secure browser and signal would no longer run and *no errors* in the error log. uninstalling and reinstalling those did not work, had to do file level and registry cleans and custom install downloads of full software. Absolutely BIZARRE behaviour post a 'system image' restore!! Makes you wonder what sort of point-in-time checking MS is doing in real time to prevent programs that were running perfectly two weeks ago at the image time from running after the restore!

I avoid this problem by using Ad Blocking software. It works great.

Im concerned about privacy and security when using cloud the way you suggest.

Thanks, Leo. I've been using Duck Duck Go for a few years. Sometimes, if I'm unhappy with the results, I do resort to Google. I refuse to use Bing, The way Microsoft is trying to jam it in my face is why. I credit avoiding Google and Bing for my peaceful time online.

If you use a Western Digital USB drive for image backup, do not encrypt it with WD Discovery. The unlock app is only 32bit and you will not be able to use it for a restore to a 64bit machine.

Excellent job, *Novacyber* -I'm delighted you're out there fighting these jerks. We must do everything possible to protect the elderly and the general public from these vile con artists! You deserve it!! Big up, brother, you deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping us safe…..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent job, *Novacyber* -I'm delighted you're out there fighting these jerks. We must do everything possible to protect the elderly and the general public from these vile con artists! You deserve it!! Big up, brother, you deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping us safe….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should try one of the intances (hosted by anyone) of SearX, a multi engine meta search site. With it, despite its flaws you are not restricted to one or the other engine, but with any you setup. Without ads and without privacy concerns, beyond the trust on who hosts it. By the way, if the contract still exists, Yahoo had one with Bing so, Yahoo, has partial Bing results as well.

Leo, I have always thought that the OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox were all synch applications, not backup applications. If you delete a file from one of those spots, does it not get deleted from your computer as well? I use a cloud backup product (which I won't name as I don't want any concerns about being a shill for them) that I have run every night for my 3 systems and my Android phone. The data goes to their cloud system. And yes I have a bunch of my google drive files tagged to be in the backup job. From my perspective, that's 2 different locations. Am I missing something with regards to my understanding of this process? Thanks.

Does Easeus ToDo run from within Windows? I keep my data on a usb external drive. So I would be backing up an external data drive to an external data drive. Image backups are not good at recognizing windows drive letters. They, for this reason, are nerve-wracking.

Learning changes is fun and I have always enjoyed the process. Win 11 when it came out was clunky now its getting to feel normal.

I purchased EaseUS Todo's "Workstation", lifetime license backup software. I did, however, initially have an issue. EaseUS's support personnel were very responsive and offered a solution (not a 100% fix, but still a very good fix). They get A+ for customer support (a rarity these days). I prefer to do backups while Windows is not running. That requires you to boot from (something like) a USB flash drive, where that flash drive contains the backup software. EaseUS Todo has a menu option to create such a flash drive. The issue I ran into, is that the ISO file it created, to be used on that flash drive, did not work. When I reported this to EaseUS's support personnel, they provided me a link to download an ISO file that they created. Their ISO file worked like a charm. But I am still not able to create my own ISO files -- which is not really an issue, because I can continue to use the one that they made for me. Although you can allow your computer to run "full" backups while Windows is running, there will be files in use that will not get backed up. That is why I boot from my flash drive and run a backup. That way, 0% of files will be in use, and 100% of the files get backed up. Even though doing a backup while Windows is running will result in many "in use" files not getting backed up, you should still be able to do a restore of your computer with such a backup image. So if you are not going to manually do backups via a bootable flash drive, then you should be fine with having backups run automatically while Windows is running. Decades ago, it was an issue, and I guess that I am overly cautious. But it seems that Microsoft knows about this, as well as backup software vendors, and it should not be an issue. Also note that no matter how you do a backup, you should create an emergency bootable drive (such as a USB flash drive). If your hard drive (or your SSD) fails, then when your replace it, how will you restore your data from your backup image? Your hard drive failed, and you no longer have Windows. If you created an emergency flash drive, then you will be able to boot from that flash drive, and run your backup software, which will copy everything (a restore) to your new drive. If you did not create an emergency flash drive, then you have some extra work to do. You will first have to install Windows. Do you have a way to do that? You will then have to install your backup software. Do you have it, or know where to get it? Do you have your registration code (you might need it). Once you have the above installed, then you will be able to restore from your backup image. But it is a lot more work, and you could get stuck if you are missing anything. With an emergency flash drive, created by your backup software, that will be all you need. I used to use Acronis's True Image. But one day they changed the functionality of mounting a backup image as a virtual drive, where it would work, only if you were signed on to your computer as an administrator. If you were signed on as a standard user, then there was no way to mount the image. No UAC prompt. Nothing. You had to sign on with an admin account. I went in circles with Acronis's support personnel, including phone calls with their support personnel. They simply broke that feature. Maybe they fixed it by now? I got fed up with them, due to waste of time, and their refusal to offer me a refund or credit or anything for what they broke.

I've found that backup software only backsup physical files on the drive and not cloud only files with a pointer on your drive.

@1:29 "Then, install a data sharing program, like OneDrive or..." Do that, only if the data you will save to them is not private or sensitive. When you use OneDrive, or any other cloud storage service, you are handing over your data to complete strangers. Those services have wildly powerful systems, and have extremely sophisticated software (ChatGPT level), such that they can easily index all of your data and build a profile on you. It is simplistic for them to do so. Every photo will likely be scanned with facial recognition tools. Same for every video. They can identify locations, and can identify activities, etc. Your files contain metadata; lots of personal information, and you are handing it all to complete strangers. If you want to keep your "work in progress" safe, then copy your work in progress files to an external drive. Make your own copies. Yes, OneDrive makes it simple, because it happens automatically. For that convenience, you are letting complete strangers know everything about you, down to the finest details. They can do whatever they want with your files, including sharing your data with others (including any government officials on the planet). Your data will be saved, not only in the country where you live, but the OneDrive servers likely save copies in other regions, too, for redundancy and favorable laws. It is simple for you to copy your folder to an external drive. It is more simple to let the cloud storage service grab copies of your files. If you are okay with complete strangers having your data, then you are good to go. Otherwise, just copy it yourself to an external drive. OneDrive, and others, make it simple to share data between devices. If you need to do that, and are okay with them having all of your data, then that is fine. Otherwise, steer clear of companies that take your files. The only exception is if you use strong, local encryption, before allowing OneDrive to grab the files. The above pertains to "work in progress". You should still be using backup software, as our host described.

I can't believe the reboot worked 😂😂😂

Acronis Perfect Image works but is VERY confusing to use!

This otherwise excellent piece omits arguably the most important "To do" -- exercise a RESTORE at least once. Backing up is just half of the solution -- the other half is restoring from backup. In my five decades of industry experience, I can assure you that the most rigorous backup strategies in the world are a colossal waste of time if RESTORE doesn't work. This can be challenging in itself, because it is often difficult to find a safe place to perform the restore. If it's at all possible, the gold standard is to restore to a completely different machine. The rub is that image backup, in particular, typically wants to replace whatever executables, registry settings, and so on are on the target machine. This can create all sorts of issues when restoring to a well-functioning system. Restoring to a different machine is often problematic unless the new machine is exactly the same as the machine that was imaged. One common scenario when a backup is needed is after a failed system update. The rub is that the target system is now in an unknown state, and the target system may not be able to even access never mind run the restore utility. You'll end up needing bootable media and -- especially in the Windows worlds -- this can quickly get VERY complicated. It is often easy to do even more harm to an already broken system by improperly booting from a "restore" media. This gets particularly dicey when the restore media wants to "adjust" partitions, with various flavors of "secure" settings in the BIOS, with encrypted media, and so on. My own imperfect approach is to run my Windows 10 Pro system on a "guest VM" running on the underlying iron. I run Rocky Linux on a robust and recent pedestal machine and I use VirtualBox (for Linux) to host my Windows 10 Pro guest VM. The advantage of this is that I can shutdown the guest VM and use Linux tools (I use rsync) to make a complete copy of the entire guest VM from a command shell in Linux. I store these copies on a different Linux file server. I'll resist the temptation to open the Pandora's Box of Windows vs Linux networking. I can't tell you how many times various of my clients and employers have spent days or weeks and enormous amounts of money successfully restoring from those rigorously maintained backups. A roomful of backups doesn't help if the media has failed (external drives do fail!), if the restore software is unable to get needed access to the target machine, if passwords and keys have changed, etc., etc., etc. The bottom line is that backing up is just half of the solution -- backing up is useless unless the corresponding restore is known to work and is usable by you.

I wish you would show step by step to do image backup

Where to look for this backup file?

When I backed up how to bring it back when I need it.

Can I image backup to google drive or OneDrive?

Hi Leo, Please assist. I have a Dell pc, it suffers from the Sleep Resume problem. It's a big issue, and if you go into Dell Support Assist you'll see the number of complaints and solutions. Dell is not helping since I'm the leprosy holder whose machine is out of warranty. Perhaps it's a Windows/ Dell problem? I've paid a technician to attempt a fix. He couldn't. Please advise. I can't simply dish out bog money for another brand, so I'd like a repair, if it's possible.

I use personal backup...

Backup, backup, backup...

i have always used for FREE Disk Genius. Excellent Software.

The problem with automated backups today when using a desktop operating system is ransomware virus'. If you leave an external hard drive connected, it has a drive letter assigned. When ransomware hits you, it hits every drive letter that you have assigned including external hard drives and network shares. Having a ransomware encrypted backup doesn't do you any good. Side note: you can continuously leave a drive connected to a Windows Server operating system because of how that operating system handles backup drives - it does NOT have a drive letter assigned and thus the virus can not attack it. We recommend doing a full image backup each Monday (or Friday). Then, a daily modified files only each Tuesday thru Friday. Next Monday, we do another full back not over writing last week's. After 4 weeks of that procedure, move Monday's backup off site and continue the procedure as before. By switching the onsite and offsite drives occasionally you have some redundancy in case one of them fail. This requires 2 hard drives. We are currently using 14 TB externals that are very cheap. If you are a one 'man' shop or this is your home computer, this is more than you'll need. But if you have a small business with several computers you would be surprised how easy it is for one of your employees to open a ransomware e-mail and destroy your life.

Reminder: If using the cloud option, don't forget to encrypt your data.

Thanks! I don't trust Microsoft with anything other than use it for gaming.

Just some thoughts on technology: considering the internet connectivity is an offending variable, can't cloud backup solutions be configured to backup from could ecosystems - Google, Microsoft - directly and then they (the cloud backup solution) only pick up the files and folders that are local on the PC (this can be defined by the user) and exclude anything on the PC that is in sync with Google, Microsoft, etc ecosystems - Google Drive, OneDrive etc. By this way the cloud backup solution is backing up user's cloud data directly from the cloud (,i.e. cloud to cloud) which forms bulk of our stuff these days and only picks up stuff for backup from user's PC that is local. It would be faster that way, wouldn't it.

Backup your backup. I also like ssd or nvme storage for backups. Spinny boy drives both internal and external have much higher failure rates and also way slower transfer times as well so if you want to backup and restore files quicker and safer get solid state storage if you can

✅ Watch next ▶ What’s the Difference Between an Image Backup and a Files-and-Folder Backup? ▶ czcams.com/video/RQ1Mp1Rh4B0/video.html

Dear friend: just skip the sponsored products (that are very useful when you are searching for something to buy as any human being in this world) and you will find what you are searching. Another tip: Iit will be better for your non commercial purposes to write: Coffee machines how they work.

I stopped using EasesToDo for several reasons (too complicated, unknown origin -Chinese?- and a bad overall feeling). So I’m back at the Windows7 backup function. Never had problems with it (but also never needed to restore 🤗). For the backups I use an USB-C stick weekly and a external hard drive monthly. My computer is only on when I use it; once or twice a week (for the rest I use a tablet or smartphone).

I have bought a WD Elements 8TB external drive and I backup copy with robocopy everything there. Plus I plan to make images backup of my OS there too.

You may have missed one point on the question about multiple versions. I previously had backup software, I think for Western Digital, that allowed you to select how many copies of a file the backup software would retain before the deleted the oldest version. I really liked this feature because it allowed you to not discover a corrupt file or that you deleted the file until a latter time, because you still had several older versions that were good. Unfortunately they stopped supporting this software. This feature was automatic so you did not have it remember to save a new version (continuous backup of changes). I wish I could find the feature again. Thanks for your great videos, I look forward to receiving them.

Google verifies any politically controversial issues with their "top source" list of serial liars at CNN, Wikipedia, and .gov sites.

i just put things on external hdd 4tb wd elements drive

Does not work win win 11 home as of June 2024.

Can you provide an update to this video? I have exactly this problem. I spent a day downloading and installing Thunderbird (for Mac), going through the MS Authenticator (many times), speaking with a GoDaddy rep who wanted to confirm that it was me trying to access my account, etc, etc, etc. And now that I (finally) have it running, there is no "Save" button at the bottom. UGH! What happened? Did they take out this feature? Do I have to buy the full version? Is this not available for Mac? Please help.

Thank you Leo. It explains brilliantly why I lost my files when I started using OneDrive back up. THankfully I had a hard drive backup.

Then how does Jin Browning locate the Indian 'scummers', ?