Need help backing up data on my LaCie external drive

[mt123]

Hello there,

 

I currently own a Dell XPS 17 9700 and will be sending my laptop back to Dell for some repairs - i.e., dead pixels. Before I send it to Dell, though, I was advised by their customer service to backup all my files on my XPS 17 just in case something happens while they do repairs. While I wouldn't purchase a backup drive just for the sole purpose of having all my files safe while it receives repairs, I thought it'd be nice to have a backup drive, anyways. Thus, I purchased a 2 TB LaCie Rugged USB-C external drive for backup. Now, while the internal storage drive on my laptop only maxes out at 1 TB and that I'm only using half of it's storage, I'd assume that a 2 TB backup drive may seem unnecessary for my case, though, I just wanted to be safe.

 

My main concern is that if anything does happen while it's repaired, and that all my files on my PC do get lost, I basically want to make an identical copy of my PC saved on this drive - i.e., all my applications, video games, everything. Put it this way, too, in the case that I do loose all my files, I'll just want to plug this backup drive into my computer, and after restoring the files, my computer will look just like it did before I sent it back (I hope you know what I mean). I'm not sure if I've done this already, though it only seems like Windows, documents, and other background stuff (i.e., display software, Dell bloatware, idk, other stuff, too) have been saved to the drive. In that, while this drive claims it has 1.8 TB out of 1.8 TB of storage capacity available, I use 472 GB of storage on my XPS - albeit, most are games - and I've completed a backup to this LaCie drive twice now. Maybe it's the fact that most of the games downloaded on my computer are from Steam, and that there's probably something blocking me from copying my data to this drive so that users don't copy games onto other people's computers so others don't have to pay for them, but I'm concerned about my save files getting lost.

 

It's also vital that I get this resolved soon because the dead pixels on my display have been bugging me for the past couple months, and the reason I didn't do this sooner was because I needed my laptop throughout my fall semester of college. In addition, I'll only have 3 and a half weeks of break before enrolling into the next semester, and Dell predicts that this repair process can take about 5 business days or more (i.e., 1 to 2 weeks; from when I ship my computer to Dell, to the day I receive it back).

 

This community has helped me so much thus far, from helping me decide on a laptop and monitor, to making me a bit more "tech-savvy" than the average consumer (at least, that's what my friends tell me), and to introducing me to the wonderous world of Windows computing. So, I really hope you folks can help me out on this one.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id kinda a veeam fanboy. They have a free version for workstations that make an image. And you can easily restore the image if needed from a bootage usb drive.

 

 

[mt123]

48 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id kinda a veeam fanboy. They have a free version for workstations that make an image. And you can easily restore the image if needed from a bootage usb drive.

Could you send me a link for this? I've been trying to find it myself and it seems like they have a million different solutions

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, mt123 said:

Could you send me a link for this? I've been trying to find it myself and it seems like they have a million different solutions

THis should be it https://www.veeam.com/windows-endpoint-server-backup-free.html