Bootcamp newbie backup question

swandy wrote:

I was always running Windows (XP, 7 then 8.1) under Parallels and decided to switch to Bootcamp. I installed my Windows 7 under Bootcamp and then upgraded to Windows 10 and basically everything is running fine.

However, I was using Carbon Copy Cloner to make backups of my Windows 7 files (when running under Parallels) and apparently CCC does not play well with Windows (at least Windows 10) on a Bootcamp partition according to their developer. All it kept doing was locking up my iMac.

Decided I would try to use the Windows built in backup and cloning programs but I keep getting error messages. Spoke to Windows tech and it apparently has something to do with some a service (VSS) not running properly, or some other Windows crap. I can't even get Windows to setup a Restore Point. (NOW I remember why I switched to a Mac years ago!!!)

VSS = Volume Shadow Set/Service. This is a layer which allows Windows Backup/Restore to function. You can try and correct the issues with the VSS service which should be part of Services under Computer Management.

(1) For those running Windows 10 - or even an older version of Windows - under Bootcamp: do you have any problems setting System Restore points or using the built in software in Windows to create an Image Backup of your Windows installation?

No. W7/W8 work fine. W10 is not certified yet. These are teething issues with W10. Try and find out how you can fix the VSS issue. Have you tried restarting the service?

(2) How do you do backups of your Bootcamp partition? What program - either on the Windows side or the OS X side - do you use? Because it seems that Time Machine can't back it up either.

I use Winclone and Windows Backup/Restore, both. Some Macs use Winclone, because it creates an OS X readable structure and can be restored over the network. On others, a locally attached disk and a NTFS-formatted partition manages Image backups and File History.