How to back up a Boot Camp external drive

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How to back up a Boot Camp external drive

My main Boot Camp partition is on my internal SSD, but in order to keep the size down, I use an external SSD as a D: drive formatted as NTFS. I use Winclone to backup my Boot Camp partition but it doesn't seem to be able to back up the external drive. I've tried Carbon Copy Cloner, but it won't backup everything. I've talked to Bombich and they tell me that they have trouble with some of the Windows files. So basically I can use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup the user data, but not the Program File folders. I don't know if it matters but I am using Paragon's NTFS read/write software so I can read and write both the internal Boot Camp partition and the external D: drive.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can use to back up the external D: drive without restarting in Boot Camp?

I'm running the latest Catalina on an iMac.

Thanks

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 14, 2020 7:59 AM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Nov 14, 2020 11:35 AM in response to bobbd

If all your personal data and programs are on D:, and C: is just Windows OS, then backing up C: may not get you much, except the Registry. You can save the Registry on a USB Recovery Key.

For backing up D:, use an external NTFS-formatted disk (or partition) and use Windows File History. If you need to recover D:, you will need to have a working C:, connect your D: backup and restore it to an external partition/disk. My recommendation is to use a full disk, because Windows Restore tends to wipe the destination disk.

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Answer 2

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Nov 14, 2020 1:06 PM in response to bobbd

If you use File History, it will do a backup while you play games. You do not need to reboot otherwise.

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Answer 3

bobbd Author

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26 points

Nov 14, 2020 1:10 PM in response to Loner T

Good point. I'll look into it.

I have Paragon HFS+ for Windows. I wonder whether that will allow File History to backup to an HFS+ formatted disk.

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Answer 4

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Nov 14, 2020 1:12 PM in response to bobbd

bobbd wrote:

I have Paragon HFS+ for Windows. I wonder whether that will allow File History to backup to an HFS+ formatted disk.

No.

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Answer 5

bobbd Author

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Nov 14, 2020 1:14 PM in response to Loner T

Okay. Thanks.

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Answer 6

bobbd Author

Level 1

26 points

Nov 14, 2020 11:46 AM in response to Loner T

Thanks for the reply. My main use for Boot Camp is gaming. All of the non-game apps are on C: so it;s just the games on D:. Other than user data, I'm pretty much aware of what I've installed so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I lost the Program Files folders. I'm just trying to find an easy way without rebooting.

I did look briefly at Windows File History. I suppose I'd have to set up an NTFS partition to use it.

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How to back up a Boot Camp external drive

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