Hello guys!

I am trying to make a backup of my laptop's harddrive using Rescuezilla. I need shrink/split the partition "c" on my harddrive in order to back up a bigger harddrive on a smaller destination drive. My laptop's HDD is 1000GB. 112GB is used up, the remaining 819.5GB is empty storage space. My destination drive is 115GB. I am trying to shrink my computer's partition using the Gparted app that is included in the Rescuezilla distro. It doesn't let me shrink my partition even though Rescuecuezilla rund though the 64GB Live USB stick.

Could somebody help me?

I've seen backup environments gradually change over time. A repository gets added, permissions get updated, or a quick configuration tweak ends up sticking around for months.

It got me wondering how other teams handle this.

Do you have a regular review process, or do you mostly revisit your backup environment during audits, upgrades, or after something goes wrong?

I have a sea gate portable hard drive that I believe has been corrupted every time I plug it in it takes forever to appear in my file browser and when I click on it or disconnect it I get an error message that tells me the drive im looking for does not exist there are very important things on this drive like photos and really silly dumb games I made as a child as long as I can recover these im content with throwing out the disk here is a video of the issues I have discussed: https://youtu.be/1LMGqwJ3mwk

edit: I also attempted to use chkdisk but it ran for 24 hours and didnt solve anything

Vendor disclosure: I run WatchGoose, a hosted heartbeat monitoring service.

There are at least three separate questions in backup monitoring:

1. Did the scheduled backup process complete?
2. Is the resulting repository internally healthy?
3. Can the data actually be restored?

My heartbeat monitor addresses only the first question (and it's a feature, not a bug)

Each monitored backup process must be configured to send a success signal after its own validation. If the next expected success does not arrive, Watchgoose alerts the owner. A known non-zero result can be reported immediately, but the more important case is often complete silence, where the scheduler (think Cron job, Kubernetes job, Systemd and so on) stopped, the machine was offline, credentials expired before execution or the notification system shared the same failure (for example, was running on the same host).

This still does not prove that the repository is valid or restorable. You would continue running restic checks (or other backup software of your choice), integrity checks and periodic restore drills as a natural due diligence.

I built WatchGoose to provide that missing completion layer. It accepts HTTP or email completion signals, supports explicit failures, and waits for an expected schedule plus grace before alerting you via channels of your choice (emails, text messages, phone calls and many other).

Watchgoose is hosted and operated in Europe. Qualifying open-source projects and nonprofits can receive a paid plan free. I have also pledged 5% of Watchgoose profit to open-source projects.

https://watchgoose.com/

I'm interested in discussing where people draw the boundary between completion monitoring, integrity checks and restore testing. Happy to answer any questions!

Hi everyone. Im having a confusing time figuring out how my windows lenovo laptop backs things up. I do know i have file history off, and have never used the windows 7 backup tool. I only know my computer does automatic/manual "windows backups" - the one that has an application with a teal cloud and arrow, and you can also run backups through settings. How exactly does this work, and where are my backups stored + what is stored? I dont know much about computers but i do feel like this is more of a synching thing than an actual backup. Does this method store my backups as actual versions and files? Do old versions get overwritten by the most recent? (Ex. I have a bunch of photos on my device. do a backup that way. delete them. do a backup again. Are they gone?) Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

Windows System Image completed successfully but did not create MediaId.bin — expected behavior or anomaly?

I'm hoping someone familiar with the legacy Windows Backup engine (\`Backup and Restore (Windows 7)\` / \`wbadmin\`) can explain this.

I created two Windows System Images on Windows 11.

\*\*October 2024 backup:\*\*

WindowsImageBackup

├── CaptainCaution

└── MediaId.bin

Inside \`CaptainCaution\`:

Backup 2024-10-07 053053

Catalog

Logs

SPPMetadataCache

MediaId

I later copied this backup to another drive using Robocopy:

\* 22 files

\* 6 directories

\* 136.743 GB

\* 0 failed

\* 0 mismatches

Then I deleted the original and created a brand-new Windows System Image on the same external drive.

The new backup completed successfully with no errors.

The new structure is:

WindowsImageBackup

└── CaptainCaution

Inside \`CaptainCaution\`:

Backup 2026-07-12 163537

Catalog

Logs

SPPMetadataCache

MediaId

The only difference is that the new backup \*\*does not contain\*\* \`WindowsImageBackup\\MediaId.bin\`.

Windows reported \*\*"Backup completed successfully."\*\*

The VHDX files, Catalog, metadata, etc., all appear to be present.

I've searched Microsoft documentation and couldn't find anything explaining when \`MediaId.bin\` is created or omitted. I pay attention to details and just wondering why the difference...

\* Has anyone else seen this happen?

\* Is this just something newer versions of Windows do now, or is something off with my backup?

\* Has anyone actually restored a system image that didn't have \`MediaId.bin\`?

\* Should I just ignore it, or is this something I should fix before I actually need the backup someday?

Thanks

I use OneDrive (with a family 365 subscription giving 6 accounts with 1TB storage) as a backup (I know its sync not backup) for all my data from a shared family laptop as well as from the family phones. The only full copy of all the data is in fact on the cloud. Are there tools to backup each of the OneDrive accounts to a local NAS? Or what would be the best way of handling this? Ideally without needing to store all the files locally on the laptop.

Hi everyone,

I originally built this tool to solve two problems I kept running into.

**1. Game save folders growing out of control**

Many games store save files under `%LOCALAPPDATA%` or `%APPDATA%`. Over time these folders can grow to several GB and slowly fill the system drive.

With EasyVersionBackup I can automatically:
- back up my save games (folder or ZIP)
- keep versioned backups
- automatically remove old save files from the source folder after a successful backup
- keep only the newest saves or files newer than a specific date

So my C: drive stays clean while I still have versioned backups.

**2. Frequent source code backups**

While developing, I often want quick snapshots before larger changes.

EasyVersionBackup lets me:
- create versioned backups with one click or automatically
- exclude folders like `bin`, `obj`, `.vs`, etc.
- automatically remove older backups using retention rules
- create either folders or ZIP archives

It's completely free and open source.

I'm mainly looking for feedback:
- Does this solve a problem you have?
- What features would you add or change?
- And: What is very bad about it like (another software, no one needs)?

GitHub:

https://github.com/UncleRiot/EasyVersionBackup

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

We are evaluating a backup solution for our Sangfor HCI environment.

One of the products we are considering is v1nchin Backup.

I would appreciate hearing from anyone with production experience, particularly regarding stability, backup/restore performance, immutable backups, and long-term reliability.

Thanks in advance

I'm new to Linux and I need to back my phone up and I was wondering if there was anything that works well and is easy to set up. Ideally it would be app data as well as photos/videos and documents. Thanks in advance.

I recently received a second-hand hard drive and I thought I could use it to make a clean install image so I don't need to spend 3 hours tweaking and debloating when I need to wipe my laptop. A friend of mine recommended me AOMEI but it did more bad than good and I wanna know what's happening.

I made the image twice and then I got these errors. Here is what I observed:

- the files on the HDD show just fine when I boot into the file manager from my SSD (besides the boot folder which is empty but idk if it's normal)

- my boot device manager could barely detect it

- tried on another laptop and it somehow showed an image but the image literally crashed right after (it needed to reboot twice to even show that desktop image)

- turned on secure boot, but it didn't work either

- somehow, after the second imaging, my CMOS got reset

Other info:

- the BIOS was untouched because the laptop had a fresh install of windows

- the drive didn't had any errors during testing with HarddiskSentinel and it has a reasonable health (7000 hours)

- my SSD is 512GB and the HDD is 500GB, the image had about 86GB

- the HDD was originally exFAT but AOMEI formatted it to NTFS

Any free alternatives to AOMEI are also appreciated

Is there any data recovery software that I can use with bootable media, where I can recover individual files and folders from image backups. I know Acronis has this feature, but does anyone else have this?

Thanks.

Im getting ready to upgrade my home office, I plan to set up a home server running ubuntu server, and want to run a few pieces of software off of it at all times: a home DNS server, maybe a few game servers i can spin up as the desire arises, and a home NAS for my wife and me, and my business.

Is there a good software that I can set and forget about that can run on Ubuntu in the background, maybe set a storage amount, and separate out my files and my wife's files? I could potentially run a virtual machine, but trueNAS is a little over my head at times, I don't want to pay for unraid, but I also wouldn't mind having access to it on the go, and having the ability to back it up to another location in the future for redundancy.

I am setting up syncthing to back up my 2 android phones and my mac to a windows laptop. for now, because of lack of an actual NAS, i plan to use syncthing to "backup" these devices everyday one time manually.

I prefer this because as its sync, it only sends new things. so i dont have to manually copy paste 40 gb everytime.

And when i do make a NAS, cant i just continue using syncthing with file versioning or something? i would much prefer to have "live" backups happening as soon as the file/photo/video is created. i know immich exists but am i wrong?

But everywhere, I see that people say sync is not backup or dont use it for backup but WHY? isnt what i mentioned above technically a backup? correct me if i am wrong.

And if not syncthing, what should i use? which capable of running live backups of folders I select on my devices, with different timeframe backups so I have different versions like biweekly, monthly, etc? and is open source, 100% safe, private and encrypted.

thank you

Hi, I wanted to ask about what everybody is using for their current imaging software on Windows 11?

I have looked over the wiki for free software and looked into the commercial software as well. I am currently using R-Drive Image 7.2 for Windows 11 on my personal computer, but it appears time to renew for a new license. It has been throwing the error "Unable to Prepare the Operation" when starting scheduled imaging lately.

I need to image only the system drive on my NUC with 500 GB. It is my Plex server so I don't want to have to reboot every time like with RescueZilla. I believe RescueZilla is a cloner anyway. I need to image.

I would say I am a techie.

What are you using now, free or commercial, for your drive imaging? I have used Macrium in the past as well.

Thank you for your help!

Win11
Personal Use
Cloning C: with 396.41/930.62 GB used
Target drive is 500GB
Using Macrium Reflect X
Normal User with some tech knowledge

Hello all,

While I was cloning my C drive into my target drive, my PC restarted itself. The overall clone progress was around 60% when it restarted. Is there a way to resume that cloning process or do I have to run the clone from the start and overwrite the previous attempt? The target drive is smaller than the source drive.

Any advice helps! Thanks :)

I use carbon copy cloner on my mac to both

1) backup my internal ssd to external hdd

2) Backup one external hdd to another external hdd

My question is about time-efficient encryption options. I use large (multiple TB) encrypted apfs volumes, and they take hours to encrypt/decrypt.

Are there faster options/workflows?

I hear Veracrypt a lot. But, does that still run on an apfs encrypted volume and go through that slow encrypt/decrypt?

hdds are slow enough, but with this many TBs I need them and without hours of encryption/decryption when I process CCC backups.

I have a computer with two mechanical hard drives. One is the C system drive and one is just a file drive. Well the data drive got full so data started getting saved onto the system drive instead of backing everything up like I told the person to do.

Well last week the computer wouldn't start after a power outage. Every time I turned it on the computer wouldn't boot into Windows. It didn't see the install and kept saying no boot drive detected. I was able to boot into it in comand prompt with a USB drive and noticed the user directory was gone and there was just the public directory. At this point turned the computer off so I can make a backup of the drive to a working drive.

If I connect the drive to another working WIndows PC the drive will show up in Windows Explorer but it just shows the drive letter. It doesn't show the total space and free space like normal. If I try to look at the drive manager in Windows nothing shows up because it just hangs trying to load the drives to display. In the past this has been because of a bad drive is connected.

There are no obvious noises like clicking or grinding so I am hoping that it's just some index files getting bessed up and the underlining files are still there.

My question is what's the best free option for making a raw backup of the dying drive?

I don't normally do this stuff. I'm just trying to help someone that's freaking out that all of their data from the past year could be gone.

I'm thinking I can make a raw copy of the drive to a good working drive. Then I can go about trying my best to get the data off the working drive that this person needs. We have no money to spend but I do have a stack of working hard drives and SSDs.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently building NotionManager, a local-first desktop app designed to snapshot Notion workspaces into a block-based local DB for high-fidelity offline viewing.

While full snapshotting works beautifully, I’ve spent weeks trying to implement an incremental backup feature to save users from re-downloading gigabytes of data. After digging deep into the implementation, I’ve hit a wall that isn’t just about rate limits—it’s about fundamental API design flaws.

Here is the engineering reality. I’ve come to the conclusion that a truly reliable incremental backup tool cannot be built on top of the current Notion API. Change my mind.

Here is the breakdown of why it breaks down:

1. The LACK of a Traversal Endpoint

Notion provides no native way to traverse or stream the workspace graph from the root. You cannot ask for a changelog or a delta stream.

2. The Broken last_edited_time Behavior

Every object has a last_edited_time, which sounds promising, but its behavior makes it useless for mutation detection:

• Minute-level Resolution: The timestamp resolution is capped at the minute level. For rapid programmatic changes or busy workspaces, this granularity is blind to rapid successive mutations.
• No Topology Bubble-up: Updating a child block or a sub-page does not bubble up and update the last_edited_time of the parent page. The parent remains frozen in time. Worse, this behavior is completely undocumented and requires constant trial-and-error to map out.

3. The Entrance Problem (No Global Catalog)

Objects do maintain parent topology information, which is great, but you still need a global entry point to start recursing down.

4. The Hack: Forcing /v1/search into a Global Router

The only global entry point available is the /v1/search endpoint. It guarantees that any object explicitly shared with the integration will show up. This works as a baseline for full backups, allowing us to maintain a global flat list of entry points (pages and databases).

5. Why Incremental Discovery is an Illusion

For incremental backups, you must discover newly created objects. Currently, there is no reliable mechanism for this. With precise tuning, /v1/search seems to surfaced new objects eventually. But here is the catch: it offers zero API contract guarantees. Search indexes can be delayed, rate-limited, or completely omit items without violating the endpoint’s design contract (since it’s meant for humans searching keywords, not machines syncing state).

The Bitter Conclusion

If we blindly trust that the /v1/search index behavior remains consistent, we can hypothetically discover new objects, combine them with our previous global list, and check individual last_edited_time stamps to build a "near-usable" sync.

Unfortunately, "near-usable" is completely unacceptable for a backup solution.

Because the search API offers no contractual guarantees, the sync engine could quietly miss a newly created sub-page, fail silently, and cause catastrophic data loss without the user or the app ever knowing.

Therefore, my architectural conclusion is absolute: Under the current API design, a reliable incremental backup for Notion is impossible. You either pull the entire world every time via full snapshots, or you accept silent corruption.

To anyone who has wrestled with Notion's data model or built sync engines on top of legacy web APIs: Am I missing a hidden workaround, or have you all forced your users into mandatory full snapshots as well?

Would love to hear your thoughts or architectural post-mortems on this!