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March 4

Backing Up Windows 11 to External Hard Drive

I have a Windows 11 desktop computer and a 1 TB external hard drive with a USB connection. I periodically take backups of my files from my C: drive to the external hard drive, which is E: when it is connected. My question has to do with certain folders. Some of them are dell, Program Files, Program Files (x86), Windows. Program Files and Windows are large. My question is whether I should back them up along with my documents and data files to the external hard drive, as in is there a possibility that I could benefit from backing them up in the event of a catastrophe? Or do they get rebuilt in some other way in disaster recovery than reloading from external hard drive? Robert McClenon (talk) 07:46, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Probably no benefit of a simple back-up of your Program Files or Windows directories. All of these will need to be reinstalled from source to work correctly - simply getting a new PC/disk and copying the files over is unlikely to have any success in most cases. Ensure that you keep all the installation media fro the programs you use (and if these were downloaded ensure those are backed up) and accept that if you get a hard disk crash, they will need reinstalling. I always partion my hard disk into C: and D:, and then to secure my data all that is required is to back up D--Phil Holmes (talk) 10:47, 4 March 2023 (UTC):.[reply]

Thank you, User:Phil Holmes. Can I partition my hard drive using the basic capabilities and toolset of Windows 11? Where is there documentation about partitioning a hard disk? Since the partition creates two logical devices on one physical device, what advantages does it have, other than ease of backup of data? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:34, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of guides of how to do this on the internet. A search for "partition disk windows 11" will bring up lots of advice. The real benefit is what I explained earlier - it simply keeps your data clearly separate from your executables and makes things like backup easier. However, you may find it less work simply to keep all your data under a single directory like C:\Data and only back that up.--Phil Holmes (talk) 08:52, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do the same thing (split into two logical drives). My understanding is that it also helps the efficiency of the disk storage. I move a lot of data files in and out and these would fragment the system drive if they were all mixed in together. Matt Deres (talk) 14:06, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]