Being a free option that actually works the way you need it too is a big benefit and to top it off, it is even easy to use. That’s a rare find for most free applications.

Where to get it?

You will want to head to Easeus to get the exe file. There is a couple of download sites that you can choose from. I chose Download.com to get the file.

The Install

Once downloaded, open the file and double click on the installer icon. This will initiate the installation wizard. Follow the steps throughout. Once everything is installed, a reboot is required.

The Interface

The interface is very well laid out. The icons and wording is pretty explanatory. The selections some may not be familiar with are: mount, unmount and check image file. A common image file type is [.ISO]. The simplest explanation if an image file is an archive of an optical disc (e.g. CD, DVD, or hard drive).

Backup

The back up process is super easy. If you get lost or need help, there is a help button in the bottom left of every page along the way. Start the backup process by clicking the backup button.

In the next screen, you will need to choose what to back up. If you have multiple drives or partitions, click the box next to what you want to back up. In this case, I did not choose one of the partitions.

Keep in mind, if you are backing up a pretty full 500gb hard drive, you will need a lot of space. You CAN compress and/or split the backup file to fit on different media such as a DVD. That is still a lot of DVDs at the highest compression. The next step is to select the destination location of the backup. If you want to store your back up to an external hard drive, select it now. You cannot restore to the same partition or drive where the backup file is located. That seems like common sense, but I thought I would add that in just in case you aren’t paying attention to the default save location. The default save location for me was in the program files folder of the partition I was backing up. Make sure you change that.

The last step is to name the backup file and click Proceed to let it do its thing.

Restore

To restore information, the process is pretty much the reverse of creating a backup. Click Restore. Select the backup file to restore from. Hopefully you have these well labeled to avoid restoring the wrong information. Select the space, drive or partition to restore to. Proceed. It really is that easy. Depending on the amount of information you are restoring (or backing up for that matter) you may want to run these at a time when you don’t need you computer for a while. I was only backing up a about 15gb and it took about 10 minutes. If you are working with the maximum of 1.5tb, you may want to run it overnight. How are you safeguarding your information incase of a hard drive crash? image credit: TaranRampersad