backup while using Bootcam assistant

By Ramy, 10 January, 2024

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello all:
after all your advice, i installed windows 10 on my Macbook pro.
now, need to take a full backup for both my mac and windows, incase anything happened, i can restore the backup.
so, I think i can take the mac backup with TIme machine, but what about the windows?
and if i will restore my backup using TIme machine, will it affect windows?
Thanks in advance and waiting your reply

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Comments

By Chris on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 16:02

Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper should backup the macOS information just fine. The only tool I know of for Windows is the old Windows 7 System Image creator that's still available in Windows 10 and 11, but I haven't used it extensively. I also don't know what the situation would be on a Mac with multiple operating systems on multiple partitions. I still recommend backing up your critical files manually or using some other tool. You can reinstall operating systems and software, but you can't get your own data back. For this reason, I only worry about backing up personal files which I do manually.

By Brian on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 16:02

I have a dual boot intel-based MBP. One partition runs macOS 13 (Ventura) and one runs Windows 10.

I have had to wipe and reinstall macOS many times over the years, but my Windows partition has always remained intact. Even to the point of deleting the macOS volume using Disk Utility.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not too familiar with backup/recovery tools for the Windows platform.

I am sure there are tools out there, however. 👍🏼

By Ramy on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 16:02

I always backup all my files, but as this laptop is for work, so if anything happened to my system, i need to get all my old system ASAP, this is why am askig this question.

By Sebby on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 16:02

Short answer: just make sure that you back up your important data regularly enough, and how you do it almost doesn't matter. If you spend a lot of time in macOS you back up from there, and if you're in Windows, you back up from there. No matter how you share data, make sure you automate the backup of the system you are actually running. IMO, this is another advantage of running Windows in a VM, because you can back up a VM from within macOS easily, even when it is running, albeit with some steps to make sure the backups do not eat too much disk space.

You say you can back up your files. You could use Time Machine while in macOS, or any other Mac backup utility, although you cannot restore directly to Windows because you can't write to NTFS without a third-party driver. You could back up in Windows, using any Windows utility including the built-in Windows Backup, File History, or whatever it's called this week. You could use a sync service or cloud service. I'm fairly sure you've already covered this. Just make sure you actually back up the small stuff, because it's easier to access as individual files.

Now for image backups. Yes, you can use various tools in Windows. Image for Windows, Macrium Reflect, even the old Windows built-in imager, if they don't get rid of it completely. It needs to support imaging a single partition and not a whole disk, but it should work. On the Mac, Winclone Standard is basically your only option, and it will indeed give you a single image file that you can back up if desired.

By Brian on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 16:02

Since this is a work computer, may I ask if it is one your employer provided, or simply a personally purchased computer you use exclusively for work?

I ask because if the company provided it, they may have employee-exclusive software such as backup/recovery.

Just a thought. . . 🙂

By Ramy on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 16:02

no, this is mine and am using it for my music business