TeeK - Those are 3 data folders in drive C that hold some photos and videos. Excluding them from backup will not mangle the restore of the Windows system.
However, I have since partitioned the very large hard drive and put the data into the other partition.
Thus there is no need to exclude anything from the Acronis backup of drive C where Windows resides.
The Acronis backup process becomes very fast.

From Ashraf dottech : [Windows] Best free file backup, drive backup (aka imaging), and system backup software
http://dottech.org/95071/windows-best-free-file-drive-system-image-sector-backup-programs-review/

AOMEI Backupper has saved me countless hours of grief on numerous occasions.
http://www.aomeitech.com/aomei-backupper.html
Full drive C system backup to external hard drive and then, for extra security, burn to a blue ray disc.

Great Backup alternative software:

1. Redo Backup. Works with Linux or Windows. Boots from CD. Destination Drive must be equal to or greater than the source drive. Much easier to use than Clonezilla.
http://redobackup.org/

2. Macrium Reflect (Windows only). Free edition or paid (paid is worth every penny). Trouble free image based backup, restore boots from CD or USB, including WinPE or Linux based boot environment.
Performs backup while Windows is running only (no cold backup).
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

@ Teek - Post no.3
I am in general aggreement BUT -
"5. If you can encrypt you backups you should, as it can stop some malware from corrupting you backups as well."
That looks like RUBBISH.

Malware CANNOT corrupt any backups that are held on "external" drives that are disconnected.

Malware CANNOT corrupt any backups that are accessible whilst they are Write protected or "OFFLINE" (Windows Disk Management can make a Disk Offline/Online

Any Backup which is ONLINE and WRITE ENABLED can be deleted or modified/corrupted by both Malware and also User Error,
and encryption ONLY protects against reading the contents, but cannot of itself prevent deletion or corruption.

A Macrium Reflect Partition image backup incorporates numerous hash checksums,
and if malware corrupted that backup then Macrium will refuse to restore the backup unless you modify Macrium's settings.
If the user has suffered malware and Macrium needs him to modify Macrium's settings before restoring the content,
that should be warning enough that the restoration will be marred by the same malware.

Regards
Alan

I found I could only back up to an on-board hard drive and not an external or network drive. As I have two on-board hard drives, one for programs (C:\) and a second one for data files (G:\) I was able to backup to G:\. However, the files says there are 0 (Zero) bytes in the program assigned directory------I'm guessing because the data is hidden.

I much prefer to back up to an external drive independent of my network and I have been using Norton Ghost 15.0 for several years very successfully. Since Symantec has dropped Ghost as a product I am looking for as reliable a program but today's giveaway doesn't seem to be it.

If the management is reading and responding to these comments perhaps they can tell me how to back up to an external drive and actually confirm that there is data in the assigned directory.

I use Horizon's Rollback RBX which can take system "snapshots" and perform "restores" in seconds. Works great for me on Windows Vista so far. Then as a failsafe, regularly perform full system imaging with Terabytes "Image For Windows", a rock solid imaging program which has never failed to restore. In the past, used Paragon's imaging programs but have experienced restore failures a couple of times that rendered system unbootable. A caveat on Rollback RBX. A great program when it works but have read that some customers have bad experiences with it before.

Download and installed without any fail on my wife Windows 8 based system. Though it is difficult to navigate, but the product is working fine...Why to worry much when GAOTD guys delivered this product as free...Enjoying free product. Trying to take up its positive aspects...

Who will read this much big reviews..In this hard and fast life people likes straight forward and to the point reviews..So being a regular user of GAOTD, I to request you guys please pass on a brief or condensed statement

When I first did a desk top computer backup - it took 7.5 min (30 Mb Hard drive) and all that was on there was the DOS - EVERYTHING else was on a disc (at least thank you for some of my habits) - if you have "files" you use or are working on - use 2 devices to hold your "files" (can be one external & your "C:" drive or any other drive you may have partitions for. BUT; when it comes to programs (yes even windows) GET DISCS !!!!! Every program you install to your hard drive (every program that you need or use) should be on a CD/DVD/external hard drive or another internal hard drive (NOT C:) that will allow you to re-install your important pieces of your computer life - back to as close as possible. Before you scroll, I have worked for industries & colleges & other school systems, radio stations police stations, emergency response "911" systems, and countless others, I built many of those systems & taught their over-seers what to expect & what to do in case, taught most of the schools how to back-up to tapes, to disks, to discs, to drives, to networks, etc etc etc (Did you like my Yul Brynner) anyway, there are thousands of "right ways" and only you can work that way out for you. A student's cries when she lost her session-long project (40% of her mark) got me into "rescuing" files - SAVING her project & seeing her smiles & tears of gratitude - taught me the value of backing up. I am not perfect, and it might come back to bite me - but, better safe than sorry! Installed on both physical partitions (dual boot) Win 8.1.2 & Win 10 TP9926 but, like Kurt - I don't have time to remove my hard drives & see if I can restore - but, I tried to make full back up & I was surprised to see that I could not make that backup from my partition with my Win10 TP in it, because the program did NOT see a larger drive to make the back-up to, will look into it further & let you know how it works out. ALWAYS use a UPS on your computer as well (I live in a rural area - electricity is 'dirty' always getting slight brown-outs - reeks havoc with Xerox printers so I started putting UPS systems on them & no more problem, since that day - I have ALWAYS had one on my system(s) as well - cheap & cheaper than the alternative). Like the change of skins - should be more. Thank you to GOTD & Eassos for today's program & HAGD! (Have A Good Day)

The only way I've found to ensure no-fail-on-restore image backups is via re-boot into USB mounted WinPE or Linux versions of image software (e.g. O&O, Macrium, AOEMI) and backup to non-system drive.
Yes, it's a pain, but worth the peace of mind. Saving grace is that imaging is much faster that way.

i have tried many backup softwares. my experience will work with you.
ACRONIS TRUEIMAGE- its nice software but heavy installed with around 300mb install size, runs bit slower while backup.
restore C: drive volum serial number as exact as backup taken.
u can start recovery while windows running.(FATAL error of this softwre starts when u restore ur c drive in booting mode,it deletes then creates partition c:\ which results in decreased partition size) then i knew its consequences.

EASEUS TODOBACKUP-its also installed around 300mb in hdd, it takes double the time to backup as well as restore jobs.
it changes C: drive volume serial number after each restore jobs.
u can start recovery while windows running.

O&O DISKIMAGE-very good n light. only 77mb installed in hdd, takes same time as acronis trueimage.
restore C: drive volum serial number as exact as backup taken
u can only recover from booting mode.(create bootable cd or usb from o&o software first to use booting mode)
major drawback***-restore job cant start when windows is running

AOMEI BACKUPPER-very good to have this softwre.installs 100mb approx.
backup & restore jobs are done at lightening fast speed,restores c drive volume serial number
u can start recovery while windows running

i have not tried all but u get through the link u can easily understand about all softwares.
u can see comparision over internet (link- www.raymond.cc/blog/10-commercial-disk-imaging-software-features-and-backuprestore-speed-comparison)

My go to program for backup / emergency restore functions is Keriver 1-click Restore Free (keriver.com), a program that has never failed me. The program makes a full backup of your entire C:\ drive. Something goes wrong with your C:\ drive, one button restores the C:\ drive to your computer, overwriting any problems that existed prior to the restore function. Backing up my 200+ Gb C:\ drive (Windows plus all my programs and data stored on my C:\ drive takes about 20 minutes, with a full restore taking about 17 minutes. The paid version of the Keriver program costs $30 and allows you to pull individual files / programs from the restored backup.

Yes, I use what appear to be similar programs to "Drive Snapshot" (i.e Horizon Rollback and Comodo Time Machine) to get out of trouble on a day-to-basis, rather than conventional full drive backups. Full backups are also necessary, though, as although the above programs are more thorough than System Restore in reversing harmful system changes brought about by accident or malware, they cannot protect you if your hard drive fails.

In these days of large hard drives, I prefer to make a simple copy of the drive to an external, normally unconnected, USB drive, rather than compress it to one or more big files which, as previous comments show, may not be useable when needed. I keep the data drive separate from the system and use synchronising programs (as offered from time to time on GAOTD) for incremental backups when only one or two folders have changed.

I use only "Disk snapshot" from a german company. Very useful program, wors fast and reliable, but is not free.

My past experience using MaxBlast has always been successful when the need arose to restore my system.
I had done it by cloning my system onto another hard drive via USB caddie which is generally not attached to the computer full-time.
Obviously this method does not keep the system as up-to-date as incremental backups, but it has the advantage of not incrementally backing up malware.
MaxBlast does not appear to be suitable for anything above Windows Vista so I'll be looking for another cloning program if I decide to stay with Windows, not yet decided.
I have never and will never encrypt or compress my clones as I believe this only inserts one more level of possible failure. Plus the program used to do my backup will have to be with a tried and tested pedigree so I'll give today's download a miss.

There are two types of backups - back up your files and documents, or back up the whole system. Some people do the former, while not many do the latter. It is quite scary how 'fragile' computers still are - a Windows Update can render your machine unbootable, while clicking on the wrong website can bring your PC to its knees while it loads toolbars, malware and other nasties.
Anyone who's reinstalled an operating system from scratch knows of the sleepless nights ahead ... finding printer drivers, installing a plethora of applications, finding registration keys, past email addresses, browser history, setting up preferences... it can take a while ... which is where a system backup comes in. Take a snapshot of your system and if anything happens, simply go back to that image.
System image software has been around for a while. The 'king' used to be Norton Ghost. It was simple, small and worked well. It was a commercial product though ... you had to *pay* for it. GASP! It even came with a printed manual - thats how old it was. No PDFs back then. Nowadays, everyone tries to find the free software.
Michael commented above about System Restore. That doesn't take a system image - it only takes a 'snapshot' of certain system files. In the event of a non-booting PC, it can sometimes not be enough to recover you. Also, you can't (easily...) copy these system restore images off for preservation purposes (when you've freshly installed an operating system, its a good idea to take an image there and then to give yourself a baseline to go back to). Never rely on System Restore alone.
Its worth looking into AOMEI Backupper. This can backup your system while Windows is running to local disks and network storage. Its quite a polished piece of software.
Looking at Eassos System Restore, the first issue was making a 'remark' for the backup. Only 240 characters is limiting, and while you're typing, you have no indication of how many characters you've used, and how many you have left. The system attempts to split the main partition if you only have one partition. I cannot express how dangerous this is. While its good in practice, so many things can go wrong. Its like taking your washing machine to pieces before looking at how to put it all back together again.
Backup options are numerous, but also confusing. http://i.imgur.com/vfUiMEv.png Other software gives a more 'wizard' approach.
The program can only backup to local drives - not network ones. This has drawbacks if you're backing up a laptop for example, which has limited disk space.
In summary, disk imaging software is the single most important software to install once you've got your operating system up and running. It can save you hours or days of work later. You don't need commercial software, and after using Aomei Backupper (which is always free) you'll appreciate the extra features that software offers over this giveaway.

The only issue when trying to backup my C Drive partition is, you can't backup to an external drive.

Can this be done and I have just not found this out yet?

This is NOT specific to this software, but aimed at anyone who values their data.

DO NOT TRUST JUST ONE BACKUP SOFTWARE. I lost 6 months work when two backup software programs let me down and both failed to restore a single useable image, despite verifying the images.

Microsoft's backups seem to fail about 1/3 of the time to me, perhaps because they are usually only doing incremental backups. What makes me angry is that all of the times I have needed to restore my computer, were because of updates from Microsoft that fail (Win 7 x64 ultimate).

So now I backup to an external drive and leave Microsoft's backup working, but also use AOMEI. You might want to use this one as well, or instead of your current software as it seems no one backup program seems to work for everyone. When I lost 6 months of work, I was using another very well-known and highly regarded backup software as well, but it failed because it did not seem to be able to cope with my laptop as it had UEFI. At the time UEFI had been common for only about a year, but the software had said it was compatible. The problem is that even if the image is verified, you never know your backups are secure until you have a disaster and need them. I am going to try using this one as a safety net if my other backup program fails to restore.

What I have learned the hard way is:
1. Always backup to a separate drive.
2. Always do a full backup, not incremental ones (as they rely on each other, so if even one fails, then you cannot restore your computer).
3. Always verify the backup images, as even though they can still sometimes let you down, it does reduce some problems.
4. Always use at least two different backup programs - Look at the reviews for them on Amazon for example and you find that they all seem to fail for some users.
5. If you can encrypt you backups you should, as it can stop some malware from corrupting you backups as well.
6. Try to keep at least one recent backup on an external drive that you do not normally keep plugged in, That will help in the case of ransomware or other malware that attacks your backups as well.

Installed and registered on a Win 8.1.3 Pro 64 bit system. A clean install.

A (Chinese?) company without name and address. I have never heard from this program.

The program installs a 64 bit version in the program folder. The software itself is from December 2013.

A small non resizable window opens, you can change 4 skins, make an usb bootable disk for restoring, set a password, rebuild the MBR...

I made a bootable USB disk. This is done within a few seconds(!). It did copy in my case only a driver to the USB disk:
http://i.imgur.com/xdWERyc.png
Obviously a fail. A short reboot showed, that there is no bootable USB drive. May work under other circumstances. I don't know.

For the backup you have to choose the backup partition, you can select, which folders to backup or not (recycle bin...). You choose a target partition, which can be hidden and made bootable for later restoring. The backup of a small system partition took quite a long time, I did not test the restore of the system partition.

The program makes a mixed impression. There are so many reliable and well tested programs, free and paid, out there, that it would a question, why to take this one for one of the most important system tasks - the backup.

Uninstalled via reboot. I prefer a long time tested program.

This should be a good alternative when my windows restore system is not working at all.