I’m one of those 5% I suppose. I’ve used Macrium for many years. I was astonished at how much you got for free. In fact I wound up purchasing a 4 user license when it was on sale just to support them.
It’s on many of my customers machines and I’m going to pitch to them to purchase it. On sale it’s a bargain and I was reminded here it’s a perpetual license. It really is an excellent product and worth the price.

To be safe. I’m in the process of testing other free alternatives in case a customer gives me push back. I appreciate your suggestion of Paragon Paul. It’s now on my list.

I’m a bit nervous about another free product however. Who knows when that one will become paid as well?

Thanks John. That Lifewire article is full of inaccurate information. People are funny, they tend to believe everything that is published on some of those better known sites.

Coming in here a little late, but another incorrect statement in the Lifewire article is that you need to sign in with MS account to Windows to access MS store. I sign in to Windows with a local account, but I still have access to the MS store (I’m just signed into the store) and have a few store apps on my system.

Hi Jim. This is so awesome. Thanks.

You guys might be interested to know that there is an active group of Heathkit H8 enthusiasts called SEBHC (Society for Eight Bit Heathkit Computerists) who are dedicated to collecting, preserving, and enhancing the Heathkit H8.
https://sebhc.github.io/sebhc/
https://groups.google.com/g/sebhc?hl=en

We ran out of “Reply” links again.

Cheers mate for the birthday greeting, appreciated.

Man, those were the bad old days, but so much fun. My old TRS-80 loaded programs recorded on tape from a connected tape deck. They were all volume sensitive so loading each program was a matter of trial and error until your found the optimum volume level.

Programs were written in basic and it was during this time that I taught myself the basic language- a combination of logical arguments and mathematical equations. I compiled a simple little program for the kids whereby they could enter in text and the computer would speak whatever they typed. It was a simple little program but the kids loved it.

Not to mention the many long nights playing games on the Commodore 64 with friends… including a few little drinkies, of course.

Good times!

Hey, well then, Happy Birthday Jim! 🙂

I hope that I’m doing complex troubleshooting on computers for the rest of my life, with any luck. Working on computers will help all of us stave off cognitive decline.

My contribution to our strolls down memory lane: My first computer as a kid was an i386 bought at a garage sale! If I recall it had maple syrup or some such on it. I had to clean it up really well. The monitor only worked if I stuffed a piece of folded up paper between the VGA cord and graphics card port. What I’d give to tinker with that computer once again.

Cheers Steve. Aah, memories!

W8.1 had to “repair” itself on last boot after removing the last USB drive w W10 install on it. I think there’s basically something wonky w Boot implementation in my system

Not necessarily. I used to always dual boot two Windows OSs- e.g. Windows 7 with Windows 8.1. Quite often, when I’d switch between OSs, the second OS would need to repair itself or wouldn’t boot at all. Consequently, I never set up a dual boot any more. At the moment I’m running Windows 10 and 11 on separate internal drives, using the boot menu to switch. Never had a problem using that system.

So, it’s entirely possible that merely attempting to boot into the clone could have impacted on the existing Windows installation.

Going way back to Orig Topic: Macrium Reflect ought to stay free. It’s a gateway into the possibilities offered by the more advanced features in the paid versions. I’m using it bc it worked for me before. I tried Acronis once and it was even more non-intuitive. Searching for “Back Up” advice floods the results w advice from the usual suspects. Microsoft is usually only helpful when you are experiencing zero problems – so why would you even be looking up help? Most results are from the usual back up vendors – so who’s to know what advice is the closest to generally accepted common sense and trusted?

I’m still wondering why my MacReflect Clone would not boot. It’s an exact copy of the HDD isn’t it? Hence my diversion into BIOS weeds etc. Hopefully won’t have to really use it except for pure personal data restoration.

** W8.1 had to “repair” itself on last boot after removing the last USB drive w W10 install on it. I think there’s basically something wonky w Boot implementation in my system.

Happy Birthday Jim 🙂 My Dad had a Heathkit H8. Started early myself lol.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit_H8

Ran out of “Reply” links so had to post a separate comment,

I thought you guys would have the backup storage options covered, my reply was more to set less experienced readers straight.

BTW: I turned 77 today… yeah, I know, happy birthday to me. 🙂 I’ve been tinkering with computers since the early 80s, starting off with a TRS-80, moving through the Commodore series, and eventually on to Windows. For me, XP was a great educational tool. The early XP release was so bad I spent literally hours finding out how to fix this and that. I’d also experiment a lot in those days, often messing things up terribly, but that type of experimentation was a huge learning curve.

One thing I do not do, as you’re probably aware by now, is necessarily subscribe to conventional wisdom.

“The only customers I have that fully respect backups are those that have lost data”

Love that! My clientele ranges from absolute novice to wouldn’t have a clue. None of them ever backup anything. On my first visit, I always clean up their system, make sure everything is tickety-boo, then create and store an image backup on an external hard drive that I hold on to. That way, if they ever run into serious problems, at least I have a clean/working backup to restore., perhaps a rather old backup, but better than nothing at all.

I hope you are not considering still using traditional hardware RAID. It’s been dead for years. Consider ZFS with FreeNAS/TrueNAS. A DIY machine is super easy to make or support IXSystems with their own hardware. https://www.truenas.com/truenas-mini/
I have 1 customer with one and they are awesome. ZFS rules.

Steve

When my backup image lands on my D: drive, it’s in a folder on my OneDrive, so they get uploaded to the cloud fairly quickly. That is just the C: drive backup though, which isn’t really that valuable.

I’ve got my important personal data from my D: drive mostly in my OneDrive as well & have an automatic backup to a small Synology NAS. I used to run UNRAID on an old Dell Optiplex, but these days I value my time differently than I used to and don’t want to maintain my own server. Synology is pricey (though good discounts on Black Friday) but for me, so worth it.

Btw, there are some great deals on manufacturer-refurbished Seagate Exos drives on the ServerPartsDeals website to populate a NAS. I actually like refurbed drives as it eliminates the infant-mortality problem of hard drives. I’m running either RAID1 or RAID6 anyway, so if a drive dies I -should- be ok.

Haha! Yes, exactly, I’ll mess it up myself for free, thank you very much!

I hear you on the backup, but you only need to backup your personal stuff. Your documents, photos, etc. Good riddance to the rest. So I’m wondering why you are having a hard time backing up?

I understand analysis paralysis well. I experience it when investing. For this computer upgrade you are doing, it may be wise to just make a definitive choice and move ahead with the upgrade. Your choices along the way don’t have to be perfect, it’ll still work just fine most likely. If not, you have your files backup up, so nothing lost.

I too like to keep things that should work, working. No reason to spend money on a new computer when you own one that has the potential to work just fine.

I recently bought a used Macbook Pro (2013 model) with a beautiful screen (apple does laptop screens very well, for glossy screens anyway) it’s an I7 and has 16GB RAM and a fast 1TB PCI-E SSD drive (this is 2013!! I was happy with a slow SATA 300 drive in my windows rig around that time) .. the person was selling it because Apple discontinued support for it. It’s a shame as this laptop is a beast. So to get to the point, I used some third-party software from GitHub to install the latest MacOS Ventura and it gets regular security updates now. For $300 I have a solid MacOS laptop that should work for years. I only use it for one purpose, music composition, so I don’t take it places too often, which is good because the all-aluminum build must weigh like 5lbs. I got way more laptop spending $300 on this used one than I would have for $300 on a new laptop without a doubt. And I got another computer-hacking project out of it 🙂

Totally. I do prepare them with a Macrium USB Key, A Macrium ISO (when they lose the key) and remind them for a monthly FreeFileSync to an external drive (pulling teeth is easier) The only customers I have that fully respect backups are those that have lost data 🙁

“That exactly what I do! It is so easy to just have Macrium (or other backup software) do an automatic backup to a drive / partition already in the laptop“.

Agreed, that is a lot more convenient. However, it is also somewhat defeating the purpose- that is, recovering from disasters such as drive failure or Ransomware infections. By all means, store backups on a separate internal partition BUT those backups should also be stored either in the cloud or, as is my preference, on an external drive.

Don’t sweat the retirement consideration. The fact that you are here asking good technical questions about maintaining Windohs put you high above many potential future customers. I have customers who don’t even know what a browser is. There are plenty of people out there who need support and will pay you decent bucks to keep them online and secure. Just be honest, ethical and kind. They will flock to you

Steve