Smart USB Backup (not smart, no backups)

Hi,
I have an Aero 15 since a couple of days. Trying to use "Smart USB Backup" (V. 4.0.20170728) to do my first backup after updating Windows to the current version 1709 and after updating drivers (some of which show a more advanced version no. as at the Gigabyte Homepage!), I get this result:
I choose the removable medium from the list, choose create - then the USB drive is formated and renamed to GIGABYTERC and is assigned the letter "T". The Capacity is >32 GB as required.

Then nothing more happens, so I tried the "Refresh Drive" button (assuming this would mean to to a new backup) and again nothing happens. Here no more things to try...

Has anyone used this utility with success?

Thanks

 

It seems that this "Smart USB Backup" is only a replacement of the Recovery partition - please correct me if I am wrong. As such, it is no backup tool as one would generally assume.

While I think that it is a good idea to put the recovery partition in a physically different medium, the implementation is not satisfactory, as it does not provide the possibility to create a recovery partition based on the *current* system (otherwise any recovery action will rewind you back to the initial state and you will lose all customizations).

Worst of all - it just does not work (for me at least).

If anyone has some hint about creating a bootable usb device based on the current system, I would appreciate it.

 

Use the integrated Windows Backup in the system control panel?!

 

The current Windows 10 version allows to save *my own data* (including version tracking or a kind of history, which is nice). This is not what I am after (actually, I have no data at the moment, this is a brand new notebook).

Additionally, you can create a "recovery drive" using the onboard capabilities of Windows 10.

When I try to create a "recovery crive" this way, Windows insists to try to format the drive with a maximum size of 32 GB (it is larger than that). Then the format operation fails saying that the drive is being used (by Windows itself?). Based on the fact that a size of 32 GB is forced, I assume that this recovery drive is not meant to contain an image or copy of the "live" system (which can be larger than that), but only an image/copy of the OEM recovery partition. The OEM recovery partition is a kind of "reset", I don't need that. As I said, I just want to create a bootable device from which I can restore the system one ne (and I am not talking about "Windows-to-Go").

So in my opinion, the integrated Windows Backup is either unsuitable for the declared purpose or just fails.

By the way, when hitting F9 at boot time, I would be able to use the OEM recovery partition; that means, I applied the patch from the Gigabyte Homepage to correct an issue here where the recovery function was broken.

Thanks anyway.

 

OK, this looks like a quirk related to the USB drive I am trying to use... It is actually a SSD drive connected via SATA-to-USB adapter.
I will retry the "USB recovery drive" creation once a get a *real* USB stick that is at least 16 GB in size...

So yes, the "USB recovery drive" creation should be the solution.

Possibly, "Smart USB Backup" is failing due to the same cause.

I will retry and let you know the outcome.

 

A second attempt of creating the USB recovery drive using Windows Control Panel ended with the message "successful", but the recovery partition could not be removed (this is an option). I have no clue about the reason for this. So the reason for the procedure failing was trivial, one has to use a real USB stick.

I plan to use the space of the recovery partition to create a data partition and move/redirect the user profile directories there just to keep data and system files separated.

Now I am not sure about which partitions need to be removed. The partition schema of the Aero 15 is like this:

1. EFI system partition (260 MB)
2. Microsoft Reserved Partition (16 MB), hidden
3. Windows partition (471 GB)
4. WinRE recovery environment partition (882 MB)
5. Recovery Image (16 GB)

I mean, I will remove the Recovery Image partition, but I am not sure about WinRE and what are the consequences of removing it. I assume that it contains binaries that run when F9 is hit at boot time. Any recommendation?

In any case, next time I will use "Smart USB Backup" after removing the Recovery Image partition. If the program fails, that means that it tries to copy the OEM Recovery Partition to the USB drive, not the current system files. Hard way to find out! I would wish a better documentation by Gigabyte!