glnz, I clone my hard drive so when (not if) it fails I just swap the dead one for the clone and I am back up and running. Can todays offering do this?
There is some confusion over backup, image and clone!

glnz, because there comes no response from Ashampoo, I' ll try to answer your questions.
1. Macrium Reflect Free, Easeus free and Aomei free all have some limitations (f.e. cloning and cloning options); you can check which ones on their sites.
2. As far as I can read on reviews and on the program description by Ashampoo, there should be no cloning option. Cloning involves a bit by bit copy of a (system) disk to another disk, including hidden system and boot files. In case of disk failure, you only have to manually replace the original disk by the clone.
3. Yes, the program can make a bootable media. Of course, you have to boot from the media and then restore the backups you made. This will take a lot of time, as all system and data files must be restored to a new disk. You don't restore from a clone cfr point 2), but from backup files, which is not the same !!!
4. Not sure, but I think Ashampoo is a German company.

Ron Dunn,

The difference between a disk/partition image backup & a clone of the same disk/partition is that the backup takes up less space.

RE: Email, if you store your emails locally on your hard drive(s), rather than keep them online, e.g. acccess Microsoft's or Google's email servers only through your web browser, then they're included in any clone or disk/partition image backup.

dan,

You can restore a backup anywhere there's enough space, but that's different than migrating an installed copy of Windows to a different device. The biggest problem is the hardware drivers that let Windows talk to the hardware -- those drivers are specific to the hardware where Windows was installed. Win10 is much better than prior versions in that regard, & will look for & add needed drivers the first time you boot on different hardware, and that will **often** work [though not always -- Microsoft is dropping their Windows to Go drives]. Migration utilities, which are included in some backup apps, e.g. Macrium, Paragon, AOMEI -- but not listed for Ashampoo's bacckup app -- try to remove registry entries for existing drivers, and often have some provision for adding new drivers that are not in Microsoft's database.

mike,
I've had success with AOMEI PRO restoring an AOMEI backup to a different PC. Apparently, the Windows P.E. environment (not the backup itself) that AOMEI provides is what allows the restore to successfully occur. This feature (called 'universal' restore) is only available in their PRO version. Acronis offers it as well.
Thanks for your reply. I wasn't hopeful that Ashampoo provided it since it would have been a feature they certainly would have boasted about. That being the case, I see no need to install this giveaway offer since you never know when you may need to restore to different hardware.
Dan

Phil,

There's no mention of anything but Windows. You can mount backups as VHDs however, so you should be able to copy individual files from a mounted VHD.

Dennis W Comito, You need something that will allow you to boot from that new hard disk, before you can recover the copy of the OS from the external disk. It is not clear this product will have the capacity to make the external drive bootable. I have also not seen an answer as to the need for this program to reside on the new HD before a complete recovery can be made.

Dennis W Comito, if you copy a complete drive, the new drive will have the same bootable system and partitions as the old drive. If you restore just a partition, then you need to take some extra steps to make that partition bootable. If you install the new disk in the same hardware system it originally came from, you shouldn't have any problems with drives or with Windows nagging you to re-authorize. But both of those things will happen if you attempt to boot your copy of Windows on a different system.

BobbyA, no, this program can't make external hard disk bootable, you are right

"If your disk fails... you do a complete backup... install a new hard disk can you then copy everything to it, including the OS, and basically re-create a new primary hard disk that is an exact copy of the original that is "bootable"?"

That's the way backup & recovery works. A disk/partition image backup is basically just the raw data stored on the drive, and when you restore that backup the data's copied to the destination drive exactly as it was on the original.

"You need something that will allow you to boot from that new hard disk, before you can recover the copy of the OS from the external disk."

Normally you would boot to a special USB stick or drive that's been prepared by the backup app, & you can create that USB stick/drive with Ashampoo Backup 2020.

"It is not clear this product will have the capacity to make the external drive bootable."

The data stored in a disk/partition image backup is generally not readable as-is by Windows, so that image backup would not be bootable -- there are maybe some few exceptions, e.g. Macrium Reflect will let you boot an image using Hyper-V.

"I have also not seen an answer as to the need for this program to reside on the new HD before a complete recovery can be made."

The backup app you used to create a backup needs to run to restore that backup. This can be done in 3 ways... Usually you'll boot to a USB stick or drive prepared in the backup app that includes a mini version of the program, e.g. Ashampoo Backup 2020. If you initiate restoring a backup using the backup app itself while running the copy of Windows you intend to restore from backup, many backup apps will copy the same files/folders that would be used for that bootable USB stick/drive to your hard drive, and boot to that to perform the backup restore, and many of those backup apps will also let you copy those files to your hard drive proactively -- since it's often necessary to download WinPE files from Microsoft, and that download can be quite large [WinPE is just a small part of it], this can be very handy. The Ashampoo Backup 2020 site doesn't mention any of this. The 3rd way would be to have another drive, internal or external, with Windows and the backup app installed, e.g. a Windows to Go drive with backup & other software installed.

Dennis W Comito,
I currently use the free Seagate disk Wizard
WD also have a free version of this.
For it to be free, it must 'see' a Seagate disk.
After installing it, you can get it to create a bootable CD
I only ever use the bootable CD, as I do NOT want Windows running whilst I am creating the backup (of the whole disk)
The CD has 3 options that I use -
1) Create an image
2) Verify/validate the image
3) Recover the image
I believe '3' is the answer to your question
You replace the drive, and run the bootable CD.
Navigate to find your image on your external drive.
And choose Recover.
Keep an eye out for a checkbox that also allows the new drive to copy the original drive's disk signature
Rob
PS I am curious as to whether today's giveaway can do the same (as my 1, 2, 3 above)

kuld, Great info. Question: Suppose after having backed up to an external HD, when and if the computer crashes, how do we restore using the external HD?
Many thanks.
drv

I just found out that you can make a recovery dvd and use it to reinstall the image file.
drv

drvajra, basically what i learned is that starting with Windows 10 version 1709, Microsoft is no longer maintaining the System Image Backup feature. You can still use the tool to create backups, but in the future, it may stop working.
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-full-backup-windows-10

"Windows 10 has already a built-in backup function.
What would be the benefits using Ashampoo Backup 2020 instead?"

Because the legacy backup in Win10 [it's a holdover from an earlier version] is designed & built by Microsoft. Not being a smart a**, but entirely serious. When it works, it's great, the key word being "When" -- I've had it fail, & I've had many, many of the bootable USB sticks win10 creates fail to boot the hardware it was created on.

" Suppose after having backed up to an external HD, when and if the computer crashes, how do we restore using the external HD?"

Usually, regardless the backup app you used, you boot to a special USB stick that runs a mini version of the backup app, then have it restore the image on the external drive.

"I just found out that you can make a recovery dvd and use it to reinstall the image file."

The bootable DVDs you can create have the same software on them that would be on the USB stick, BUT, you very often will not want to use a DVD rather than that USB stick. The reason is that there are 2 ways that the device BIOS can function -- UEFI & Legacy mode. Very many BIOS jump into legacy mode booting from a DVD, even though they normally use UEFI. In theory that should be OK, but too often it is not.

drvajra, you restore your backup to new hard disk if old one is dead or can't be recovered.That s main reason to backup and/or disk imaging.Dont forget to make bootable cd or USB flash drive

dave c,

Full disk or partition images only.

JerryWithaJ, Yes, you can have the files stored with no compression. That way you can restore them without the program (current user of version 20)

Harold Drabkin, sorry I meant VERSION 12.05, not version 20; I upgraded to 12.05 this year. So not the 2020 version; still works well.

Does that mean that the default setting is a proprietary format? Knowing that there's a "no compression" setting is a big help, but I'm curious.

Harold Drabkin, the question was about the format, and if the format is proprietary; not about compression. The question surely makes sense, as many manufaturers like Acronis, Easeus, Aoemi, Paragon, Macrium and others use proprietary formats. Anyways, I think you can never restore a system backup without a (proprietary) boot disk that is always provided with the backup software (but not always free of charge).

Sean, the files stored without compression are not in proprietary format. I can and have opened up the backup drive and go through the folders and drag a file into my machine. Did not have to use the program.

JerryWithaJ,

"That is, is the format proprietary?"

The raw data stored in a disk/partition image is not readable by Windows as-is -- usually the archive has to be mounted as a VHD [Virtual Hard Disk]. The file format for that VHD is usually proprietary, though some backup apps like Paragon give you the option to use Microsoft's .vhd format. Once you mount the VHD containing the image backup you can of course copy one or more files from it -- it's as if the backup was restored to a separate partition(s).

"The program I'm currently using allows me to make backups using the file's native format. The few times I've needed to recover something, I did nothing more than a copy (from the backup) command."

Then it's most likely not a disk/partition image backup app, but one that copies the files/folders rather than the raw data stored on disk.

Harold Drabkin, You state that files CAN be stored with no compression -- but I can find NO indication of that with the initial screen. ie. "Settings" does not give you any selection for that -- unless it is at the moment of backing up?? As I am not doing that right now, IS it presented at the time of actually backing up?

Thanks for any confirmation -- because having used other backup programmes, like Easeus, Macrium or Paragon, the last thing I want is yet another proprietory compression system. Nowadays, I ONLY store native, uncompressed, backups.

Anyone able to confirm that compression (or the lack of it) is set at the actual moment of backing up??

Thanks a lot!

Tranmontane, the option comes up as I was creating a backup plan. I just notice now, however, that this giveaway does not say PRO at the end, so I wonder if it's an option only for the PRO version.
It displays in my backup plan summary also.

Wyns, you can create a Rescue Medium by going Rescue System - Create Rescue System. Use USB stick or CD/DVD and use that even when your computer does not start anymore.

Shane Cory Potter, you can say this is "stripped" version of Ashampoo backup PRO. There is no free version of this program except giveaways

Wyns, you certainly can. Kind regards