Backup Advice

Hey all,

Been playing all night with my new M14x and got it all set-up as I wanted although there are a few things regarding backing up/recovery that I don't fully understand.

When I got the machine and had checked all was ok I used Alienrespawn to make a USB backup of the factory settings. I will keep this in a drawer assuming that it allows me to restore to this factory state incase anything goes up?

I then installed an msata drive and did a fresh windows install on that and optimised for performance. I then re-installed my factory 500GB HD to use purely as a storage drive. Upon setting this up I deleted the original factory recovery partition (rightly or wrongly) so I could free up all the space possible on it (thinking my USB would perform the same function?)

After I deleted this factory recovery portion I though it would be a good idea to have a portion of the HD to use as rolling backup as an extra safety. So I partitioned 20 GB of space and set it up to run windows backup on it (not 100% what it allows to do or is even worth while?) thinking that it will keep a rolling backup of my system files.

I did keep a small portion of the SSD using system restore as I have found it useful in the past and could afford the few of GB it needed.

So my questions I guess are :

1) Does the USB created with alien respawn at the time of receiving the laptop allow me to roll back to factory setting competely? IE My absolute fail safe

2) Is there any benefit at all in running windows backup by using a 20GB partition on my 500GB storage drive?

3) Is there an easier or better way to feel safe in the knowledge I have options for recovery if something goes wrong?

Thanks for any help

 

1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Not really, the USB made an exact copy of it. It will even partition everything for you (On unallocated space).

You're all good, except maybe that 20GB partition space, it's kind of useless. You could do a backup to it I suppose and use it like that.

 

Thanks for that. One final question, if I uninstall alienrespawn (to reduce processes etc..) will i still be able to use my boot drive I created using it? I assume so but just wat to check that i can go ahead and uninstall it.

Thanks