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Backing up operating systems

Flameskid
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So my father passed away recently. He has a computer that obviously we don't want to just keep sitting but I want to back up his stuff to a portable hardrive. I would like to do it as a partition copy so I can boot the whole system as it was to make sure no data files or even saved passwords are lost. The problem is he has multiple systems and drive with both Windows and Ubuntu OS included. Can anyone recommend something for backing up everything to a single drive and still have it all bootable?

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I'm sorry for your loss.

 

I would recommend pulling the drives and storing them in a safe place, and putting a new drive into the computer if you intend to reuse it. I would also suggest going through his files (if you deem it respectful to do so) and finding pictures and other important things and neatly organizing them onto that external drive instead of copying absolutely everything.

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Just now, kelvinhall05 said:

I'm sorry for your loss.

 

I would recommend pulling the drives and storing them in a safe place, and putting a new drive into the computer if you intend to reuse it. I would also suggest going through his files (if you deem it respectful to do so) and finding pictures and other important things and neatly organizing them onto that external drive instead of copying absolutely everything.

Thanks for the reply. But I am wanting to copy the partitions for 2 major reasons, 1. he has a lot of account with different emails and password, which while I might remember, im not 100% confident. 2. He stores a lot of different types of things in a lot of folders and it would be difficult to find everything and/or know what was worth backing up as he had a lot of work and home stuff as he was very tech literate. So if it is possible I think I would be more comfortable with copying the partitions. As for storing the drives, I dont really have a great place or method which is why im wanting to put everything on one drive.

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10 minutes ago, Flameskid said:

Thanks for the reply. But I am wanting to copy the partitions for 2 major reasons, 1. he has a lot of account with different emails and password, which while I might remember, im not 100% confident. 2. He stores a lot of different types of things in a lot of folders and it would be difficult to find everything and/or know what was worth backing up as he had a lot of work and home stuff as he was very tech literate. So if it is possible I think I would be more comfortable with copying the partitions. As for storing the drives, I dont really have a great place or method which is why im wanting to put everything on one drive.

As stated above, best case for this is to take the drive out and store it. Buy yourself an Anti-Static bag to put it into then a nice cardboard box and Styrofoam.

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17 minutes ago, Flameskid said:

Thanks for the reply. But I am wanting to copy the partitions for 2 major reasons, 1. he has a lot of account with different emails and password, which while I might remember, im not 100% confident. 2. He stores a lot of different types of things in a lot of folders and it would be difficult to find everything and/or know what was worth backing up as he had a lot of work and home stuff as he was very tech literate. So if it is possible I think I would be more comfortable with copying the partitions. As for storing the drives, I dont really have a great place or method which is why im wanting to put everything on one drive.

Copying drives to the point where you can boot from the copy isn't very reliable in my experience. I strongly suggest you just store the current drives.

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CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X Motherboard: MSI B450-A Pro Max RAM: 32GB I forget GPU: MSI Vega 56 Storage: 256GB NVMe boot, 512GB Samsung 850 Pro, 1TB WD Blue SSD, 1TB WD Blue HDD PSU: Inwin P85 850w Case: Fractal Design Define C Cooling: Stock for CPU, be quiet! case fans, Morpheus Vega w/ be quiet! Pure Wings 2 for GPU Monitor: 3x Thinkvision P24Q on a Steelcase Eyesite triple monitor stand Mouse: Logitech MX Master 3 Keyboard: Focus FK-9000 (heavily modded) Mousepad: Aliexpress cat special Headphones:  Sennheiser HD598SE and Sony Linkbuds

 

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What version of windows was he using? please keep in mind that if its windows 7 (or possibly 8, i dont remember) thres a good chance that system image will not be bootable if the hardware is significantly different.

you may prefer a different solution, but the correct one would be as suggested above. pull the drives and store them, and copy all important data to an external drive. place a new drive in the system if you plan to continue using it.

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The best thing you can do here is get a large external storage and post each PC and take everything you want off and store it that way.

 

To keep all the systems bootable, store the entire PC (each one)

 

Chipset drivers must be uninstalled from each rig if where to try and "hot swap" the operating system to another working computer to post from the drives.

 

And sorry for your loss. My Kids will face this same conundrum when I die. But hopefully I'll have most everything from my life experience backed up for them by then.

 

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