The first thing you should do with a new computer.
Hi everyone. Leo Notenboom here for AskLeo.com if
you can control yourself when you get your new computer,
there's something I want you to do before you start playing with it.
Now, if you know me at all, if you've watched any of my content
at all, you'll understand exactly what it's going to be.
I'm going to ask you to back it up.
The problem here is that there are two different kinds of backups.
One is what I will call more pristine than the other.
The issue is what I would really like
for you to do is to back up the machine before you've even started it,
before you even run Windows, before you've set it up.
The machine that you just got probably has Windows preinstalled,
but it's in a state that is now waiting for you to configure it.
I want to preserve it in that state.
True factory original. Right before you've touched it.
Unfortunately, that's difficult to do.
There's a trick that I want you to at least consider.
It may not be worth it to you, and we'll talk about that in a moment.
But I want you to at least consider doing this.
And the steps are very simple, even though it's a fairly complex process.
The first thing I want you to do is on a different machine
using either Macaroon Reflect or EaseUS Todo or whatever backup software
you have that has this capability is I want you to make what's called a rescue
disc or a repair disc or an emergency disk.
Those disks can do two things.
They're intended for you to be able
to restore a machine, restore a backup to a machine if you run into problems.
But what most people don't realize is
that those same disks can also be used to make a backup image.
So when you boot from one of those rescue
or emergency disks, I'll just call it a rescue disk.
When you boot from one of those rescue
disks, you'll boot into a version of the backup program that you use.
And yes, it'll be all defaulted to do the restore operation,
but you'll be able to click on backup and make an image backup.
So what that requires is that you have this emergency rescue disk.
I keep saying disc.
Also, nowadays it's much more common for that to be a USB stick,
but you get the idea what you've got is something that you could boot from.
Now, here's where it gets difficult.
As you turn on your new machine, I want you to interrupt it so that you get
an opportunity to configure its BIOS or UEFI.
Unfortunately, whether you can do that and how you can do
that is something that I can't tell you because it varies from machine to machine.
It's different for each machine,
and often it's different from manufacturer to manufacturer.
But it's also often different from model to model.
So check with the instructions that either came with your machine or the instructions
that would be available from your manufacturer's support site.
To understand how you can enter the you
EFI settings without actually booting from the hard drive.
Once you do that, you should then be able to change what's called the boot order.
Again, I can't tell you how, because how you do that will vary,
but the idea is that you will instruct the BIOS to then check for bootable media,
either on a disk or on a USB stick before it checks the hard disk.
Once you've changed that order,
then you would insert the disk or insert the USB stick and reboot the machine
and have it boot from the rescue disk that we just created.
That then right then and there will allow
you to create a backup image of the machine as it exists right now.
Before you've done anything on it,
you'll need to attach an external drive to do that as well.
Second USB external drive to take that image.
But that's the idea is that you can then boot from this rescue media.
Use that to create an absolutely pristine
image of the hard disk to an external drive.
Once you've done that, once the operation is completed,
you may or you may not want to go back into the BIOS the same way you did
the first time and reset the boot order to what it was.
You may not need to, because it may very well boot from the hard disk
once you don't have this USB rescue disk or literal rescue disk installed.
But the point is that you then want to go
ahead and boot into Windows normally from the hard disk,
and you can go on and configure it to your heart's content knowing that you've got
a pristine image that you've taken before you did any of that configuration.
Now that's like I said, a bit of a pain,
and I totally get it if you don't want to do that.
And in fact, in some machines it may not even be possible.
The UEFI BIOS can be locked down tight enough that especially on a brand new
machine, you may not be able to get in and change the boot order.
You may not be able to boot it from one of these rescue disks if that's the case.
Or like I said, if you just don't want to go through the trouble,
the next best thing is to boot it into the operating system
that came with the machine, set it up the bare minimum.
In other words, set up only enough so that you finally get yourself
to the Windows desktop to the point where you can then install your backup software.
And at that point,
once your backup software is installed, you should then immediately make a full
image of the machine that's as close as you can get to pristine.
And for most scenarios,
it's actually good enough it will get you back to a state that is pretty darn close
to what the machine looked like when it arrived.
It'll just have your initial configurations and nothing else.
Then after that backup has been taken install to your heart's content.
Configure to your heart's content knowing
that you've always got this safety net that no matter what goes wrong,
you'll always be able to restore your machine to the condition it was
in on the day it arrived or very, very close to that condition.
Hope that's helpful for Updates For related Links For comments on this
article, more visit askleo.com/143069. I'm Leo Notenboom and this is Askleo.Com.
Thanks for watching.