Originally posted by jpzk Update
So, I got the external drive.
I chose a 500GB USB3 "mechanical" drive; it's all I could afford for the moment. It is "cheap" and I hope it will be reliable. Couln't go with a Seagate nor a WD ... too much $$$.
"Mechanical because I was told it is "safer" ?
Now, I have all of this as shown on a screen capture and I pointed to the new drive with a red arrow:
Right. Here's what you do:
1. First, you'll see a screen like this, as you already know. On this screen, make sure the drive you want to write the backup to, is unclicked and the drives you want to back up is clicked. Look where I marked in yellow.
When you're happy with those settings, click "Image selected disks on this computer" outlined in red. Don't mind that my drives show red - that's because they're so full. (I need to do a cleanup again) You will likely see all your drive sizes as blue)
2. The software will ask you to "Select Source and image desitnation" The screen should look something like this:
If you're happy with what you see, in the block I marked red, then you click the "next" button that I marked green on this screenshot.
3. Now, the software will give you some options: Whether you want to use a template or not (leave it on "none), and depending on the size of your backup, how many different backups you'd like to keep on this storage device.
Because my backups are so large, I always store only one per backup drive. The options in the blocks I marked red can be changed by you, as you wish. When you're happy, click the "Next " button that I have, again, marked green.
4. Next, the software will confirm what you've asked it to do, on this screen:
If you're happy with your setup, you can click "Finish" which I have marked green on this screenshot.
5. Now, the software will ask you if you'd like to name your backup. You don't have to, you can simply leave it as "My Backup" but I prefer to change it to the model name of the machine I'm backing up so that I can differentiate between different machines backups easily.
6. So, here you can see I have renamed the backup as "HP8760w" and after this, we'll click "OK".
(As always, with computer software, if you don't know what to do, remember to read the screen!)
7. As soon as you click "OK" and assuming there's no problems with your settings, you'll see this screen:
The software will show you how it progresses through the different steps. Now, if you're using the machine while all this goes on, it's fine. It will just do the backup a bit slower. So, to continue working without seeing this screen all the time, you can click on "Hide" which I have marked green again, and it will disappear off your desktop. If, however, you're happy for it to do it's thing while you go to bed and check up again on it in the morning, then simply leave it on the desktop.
If you do hide it, then you can get it back by clicking on the "Show Hidden Icons" button, usually located on the bottom right of your taskbar.
One last thing to remember: Macrium should keep your computer "awake", but if it does not, and your computer is set in your power settings to turn off or go to sleep after a certain amount of time, then your backup may pause or, worse case scenario, fail. It pays to set your sleep / power off settings to keep the machine awake while doing backups.