Posted on 04/10/2016 5:25:28 PM PDT by don-o
My Sony Vaio laptop came with Windows 7 preloaded and no physical disks. I read that there was supposed to be a recovery partition on the hard drive and figured that would be all I needed. To this point, I never had to use it. I do regular backups of my data (documents, music,etc) to an external HD.
Yesterday, I was looking at Task Manager and saw a bunch of processes running. I looked at the descriptions of what they were supposed to do and stopped a bunch I thought I did not need. Computer continued to run fine. Long story short, this morning, I could not boot.
I was able to undo the damage I had done and did get started. However, I finally had the motivation to use the tool on my Sony that allows me to create an OS recovery medium on a thumb drive. Just as a safeguard.
I find the tech threads here always interesting and I learn a lot. So, perhaps there can be some discussion about how best to back up the operating system. I know that Windows has its backup program. I have not looked at that. I have also heard of other ways to do it. Share your knowledge and opinions, please.
Do a total install of Windows 10. Windows 10 rocks. My new ASUS computer came with Windows 8.1 and I had all types of problems. Now my computer runs like the Black Stallion.
I have to second what EEE has to say....Win10 is much better than Win7, Win8, or Win 8.1.
Do a complete reinstall and start fresh...you won’t regret it.
If all else fails, you can download the Windows 7 isos from the Microsoft site.
First use this utility to get the Windows installation key from your current installation.
https://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/
Next go to the Microsoft site.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7
Download and burn to DVD whichever version you have and you can do a clean install using the key you obtained above.
Finally, go to Sony’s site and download the hardware drivers for your PC.
Control Panel Home
Backup and Restore
Create System Image
“Uh, except for “Get a Mac.” I know about that. “
You should have included Linux in you no thank you.
Win 8, 8.1 worse POS’ ever offered.
OK. Do you suspect that the recovery that Sony offers is not sufficient?
Thanks. Can that image be stored on external HD?
Get a good imaging program.
I use Macrium Reflect (free home use version) to image my C (operation & programs drive) and D (data partition).
Restoring images has saved me many times.
Reflect allows you to create a bootable disk (Linux) and save images while actually in Windows.
I save my images to a USB 3.0 drive. It takes about 40 minutes to image and to restore my C drive.
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
Imaging comes in handy when a regular System Restore won’t work.
I create image files a couple of times per year and after major installations or upgrades of existing programs.
No. Only if all else fails, meaning if you can’t figure out how to get to the recovery application.
It’s probably available on bootup. You probably have to press F8 as it boots.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/restore-sony-vaio-system-files-hidden-partition-54460.html
Doing a Google search for “sony vaio backup” shows all kind of hits. Videos can be helpful sometimes.
Hardware is cheap, data is priceless.
You can buy 1TB portable external hard drives that are about the size of a deck of cards for $50 each. (I use WD My Passport). Buy at least a couple (more is better) and rotate your backups daily. Keep the most recent backup somewhere where you do not keep your computer (If your computer is at your office, take your backup drive home at night. If your computer is home, take your backup to your office).
SyncBackFree is a good free program for backing up data.
http://www.2brightsparks.com/download-syncbackfree.html
You should also use a cloud backup (MS OneDrive, Google Cloud, Dropbox, etc.) as a last line of defense. I have about 10TB of data backed up on various cloud drives. It is good if you need to retrieve a few files at a time, but it would take me a month to try and download all of it. On the other hand, if my house and office were to burn to the ground I know I still have all of my data somewhere else.
Bookmark for later
bimp
The upside was the price....I paid $39.00/each for three copies because Win8 was so poorly recieved. The Win10 payoff was worth it.
Tech ping
There are many ways to do this. One way is to buy a new hard drive for $40-$50 and clone your current drive to it. Most hard drive manufacturers have free software to do this. Put it in a safe place. You now have a bootable exact copy of your system and all of your programs. If your hard drive croaks, you will be back up and running in the time it takes to swap the hard drive. Now get a large USB flash drive or a network attached storage device or sign up for a free cloud service and use that to make daily backups of any data files you created.
Make sure you look behind you.
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