We have to send Alden's Lenovo for service and need to back it up to a hard drive. Any good free or cheap options for backup software? Thanks

My suggestion would be to 1) use something that can clone the drive* so that you can just install the copy and pick up where you were if the original is damaged/missing, 2) remove the drive before sending it in.

* My preference is to load up a live Linux installation from a USB stick and do this using dd. But there are other less nerdy options, I think.

I have used something by Acronis and Clonezilla. I would also recommend a "clone" instead of a "copy" as you invariably miss something.

I'm not the most tech savvy, so my recommendation is to write it all down on legal pads.

Remove hard drive before sending, Reinstall on return?

Clone / backup and upgrade to SSD? (or just use external drive for backup)

http://www.howtogeek.com/199068/how-to-upgrade-your-existing-hard-drive-in-under-an-hour/

(they used this free software http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx )

Edited September 22, 201510 yr by Grahame

Plenty of free 'cloning' software (I've never found significant differences between the ones I've used).

If you need to go out and buy an external drive just for this purpose, if his laptop has USB3, try and find a portable drive that supports that. Way quicker and whatever makes backing up less painful makes routine backups more likely.

Edited September 22, 201510 yr by ironbut

The Acronis stuff always worked well for me when I was still naive and used Windows.

Best practice would be to periodically clone a drive to minimize downtime from failure and to also, at the same time, be backing up folder's with files you care to save to another drive.

The Samsung clone software that came with a drive I recently got worked perfectly fine for this purpose.

Microsoft SyncToy works great for backing up folders - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155

 

Another vote for Acronis.

If you have a Western Digital hard drive.....

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119

Agree with Mister X,

Both Seagate and Western Digital provide free backup software which is Acronis. Have used this for years, just use

clone option. Works great.

Thanks all for pointing out the free Arconis backup. Doing a full backup right now.

Thanks everyone! Realized all of our external drives are Apple formatted and mostly full so I will get a new one for my PC kid.

Just bought a Seagate Backup Plus drive and there is no Acronis anything on it. There is a Seagate backup software that does not specify a clone option, there is Lyve software for photo crap, and there is Microsoft One Drive for the cloud backup.

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/discwizard/

I think that will help you out

You could replace the HD as a hole before sending it for service