Sim Computers - Backup measures...

[sagrada737]

Hi Guys,

Most all of us have experienced major problems with our Sim computers, where one day every thing was working great, and the next day the Sim computer experiences various problems or the operating system becomes corrupted.   Having gone through this myself with my own Sim, I thought I would share what I have done to have some insurance in case the computers develop un-recoverable problems.

1.  I make frequent back ups of all the critical applications and configuration files.
2.  I make frequent Windows Restore points - especially before installing any new software or driver, or driver update.
3.  I make a Mirror of my hard disks.  One for each Operating System in the Sim computers (SSDs) in the system; and one for my FSX SSD.   I do this with Paragon software.

The above has saved the day more than once for my Sim setup.   If you don't have a recovery plan for your Sim computers, believe me...   The day will come when you wish you did - as it takes a lot of time to rebuild and setup a fresh Sim computer.

I would be interested in hearing what others are doing on this topic.

Mike

[Trevor Hale]

Hi Mike,

I use a program called RDISK

As soon as my computers are setup exactly as I want them, I take an image using RDISK.  If I ever Have an issue, I can revert to the previous image.  The reason for this is, I don't have to manually do anything, I just restore the image on a boot and everything is 100% as it was.

Replaces the operating system and all software in their exact configuration.

The only challenge here is if you replace hardware, depending on the hardware the image may be incompatible (For instance CPU/Motherboard hardware upgrades) But you can always make a new image if you get that sorted out.

Trev

[fordgt40]

All my PCs  have an image backed up to my NAS and then backed up to an external USB HD. Bullet proof - like hell!
I recently had a battle trying to remove an unwanted and failed Windows 10 installation. Cue recover the image and all will be fine - NO
Somehow my MBR/Boot Sector got screwed and windows would not boot just complained about no bootmgr file. Windows repair did not work - indeed nothing worked so it took 2 days to reinstall everything, even so I lost some data

If you want to be totally bullet proof then you also need to make a partition table/MBR recovery disk

David