Use Backup on diffrent device

[Horia1]

Hello,

My Laptop was stollen recently. I used to make backups on an Western Digital external HDD with the HDD automatic backup system.

I bought a new laptop. Also a Pavilion x360 14" (also touchscreen) but with slightly different specifications (less RAM, less powerfull Intel card).

Can my Backups be installed on this new device ?

Thank you in advance

[WAWood]

@Horia1 

Sorry, but I don't have very good news for you ...

The backups are model-specific and can't be used on different model than those on which they were made.

This is one of my arguements for NOT using built-in backup solutions -- the limitations imposed on them.

If you had made an image backup with a third-party tool, most notably Macrium Reflect (MR), you could have then "mounted" the image as a virtual drive and copies files and folders from it to your current PC.

I personally prefer to use third-party Backup solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

[Horia1]

Hello Wawood,

Thank you for replying ! Your answer is unfortunately far to complicated for a non specialist as I am.

The only thing I understand is the 2 first lines ...

Best regards