Samsung Recovery Question

I have a fairly new laptop, the NP940X5J. I don't know the Samsung Recovery version but when I try to run Disk Copy from the utility it tells me all data on the target drive will be erased. There are no options as to where to put the backup on the target and I am not selecting "make bootable". My external target drive is 2TB, why in the world does it have to erase all the data to copy about a 30Gb image and backup? Am I missing something?

 

The Disk Copy feature in Recovery (which exists only in Samsung Recovery Solution 6 (SRS6), not in the earlier SRS5) is NOT a backup feature. It is used to clone your SSD/HDD to an external drive. It is what you use when you want to install a new drive in the computer and clone everything from the old drive onto it.

If you merely want to create a backup of the current state of your computer, you use the Backup feature.

This Samsung Guide has more info.

If you want to create a backup of Recovery itself (allowing you to completely re-image your SSD, regardless of how messed up it becomes) you need to create a so-called Bootable Factory Image Backup on a USB flash drive. See this post for details.

 

Ah, ok. The link to the Recovery guide was very helpful. I had already read and bookmarked your post about creating the Factory Image on USB. Thanks very much.

 

I'll follow up my newbie question with one more. I created a Bootable Factory Image Backup on a USB (per Dannemand's excellent post) - tested it, all good. I have 2 additional backups of the C: drive (also created with Samsung Recovery) to an external usb HD. I also have Acronis backups but would prefer to stick with the Samsung Recovery 6. If disaster strikes my game plan would be restore the factory image either via USB boot drive or the F4 Recovery partition, then when it's back at factory state do a restore of the C: image with Recovery to get it back to that point in time, then do any updates required by Windows, SW Update. Is that correct?

 

Hi Mike,

Sorry for the late response to this, I don't get to NBR much during the week.

Just to make sure I understand you correctly:

1) You have an SRS bootable factory image backup on a USB flash drive -- factory restore if disaster hits.

2) You have a additional SRS backups on external drives -- and want this to be your primary form of state backup.

3) You have an Acronis partition image -- but don't want to rely on it.

In fact, Acronis is a great way to backup just your Windows partition as a snapshop of the current state, as long as you don't use Acronis to touch the Recovery partition (which will damage it). Samsung Recovery can be used to back up your Windows state as well (as you found) but it is only good as long as you can boot Recovery -- which we know is easily disturbed. Acronis can be booted from a USB stick regardless of what happens to your SRS.

The bootable factory image backup will completely re-image your drive (or a new drive) and take it back to factory state, including a factory Windows installation. After that, you can restore an Acronis image of the Windows partition OR load SRS (F4) and restore a state backup from an external drive. In either case, you then add any Windows updates and other changes you made since the state backup was created.

When you create SRS state backups on external drives, make sure you don't change the names of folders or files of that backup. Otherwise SRS cannot find it when you try to restore.

 

Thanks for the reply. So I shouldn't have backed up the recovery partitions with Acronis, good to know. I would not change the name or path of the folder SRS creates which brings me to one last question. Is it possible to delete an earlier SRS backup of the C: drive since it puts everything in this SamsungRecovery folder? I don't see an option in the Recovery GUI and I don't think manually deleting these files is a good idea. Thanks again, I've learned a lot on this forum.

 

Having backed up with Acronis is not a problem, as long as you don't try to restore the Recovery partitions. That's when the damage happens.

I have to say I don't know how to delete individual SRS backups. It's rather silly that there isn't a GUI option for it. You could do some tests with a new backup to see what happens if you delete the actual files (delete to Recycle Bin, so you can restore them if it breaks other restore points). But I am afraid I couldn't tell you the structure and which files to delete.

Again, I would consider using SRS only for the factory image (in case you need to send the computer back to Samsung or want to sell it some day) and use Acronis for state backups of your Windows partition.

 

Ok, one last one. I also see a Windows RE tools and a System (fat32) partition. They are not large. Do I need to backup/restore these on Acronis also since I will already have it at factory state or just the local disk - c:?

 

That's Windows Recovery and the EFI system partition (so-called ESP). There should also be a small Microsoft Reserved partition (so-called MSR) though it may be hidden.

You can back those up once. They will normally be re-created when the disk is re-imaged (factory restore) or during a Windows clean install. But it doesn't hurt to have a backup, since they're so small.

 

Many thanks.