Solved AOMEI Backupper (Free Standard Edition) Review

cereberus said:

You are a new poster. The vast majority of members in this forum are enthusiastic amateurs from all walks of life and most also participated in the sister forums - particularly www.tenforums.com often with multiple hundreds or even thousands of posts.

I can assure you many here have tried alternatives - there was a recent giveaway of 100 free pro licences of Easeus Todo before the poll, and you would imagine that would have swayed the vote to some degree.

I can assure you that poll does reflect users feelings and is not a case of "following the sheep" as you rather imply. Please give the users here credit for intelligence.

Click to expand...

Ah yes, "the you are a new poster" line to suggest ones views are perhaps less valid than long termers (in what is a less than 2 year old forum). Am also long term member of tenforums which imo is irrelevant.

I never implied the votes were a case of "following the sheep", nor was I discounting their valid preferences in the software the voters tried. Have feeling you mis-read my post and saw things in it (which were not there) that tweaked you in some way as appears evident from your response. Unless you are saying that all the voters have admin/IT level requirements for imaging software (do they?) and exclude those who have simple backup requirements I stand by my case, which is that "its the familiarity and experience with a given product that ultimately sways the votes". And given the numerous imaging backup solutions out there, I think it would be silly (if not obsessive) for someone to have tried them all.

blued said:

Ah yes, "the you are a new poster" line to suggest ones views are perhaps less valid than long termers (in what is a less than 2 year old forum). Am also long term member of tenforums which imo is irrelevant.

I never implied the votes were a case of "following the sheep", nor was I discounting their valid preferences in the software the voters tried. Have feeling you mis-read my post and saw things in it (which were not there) that tweaked you in some way as appears evident from your response. Unless you are saying that all the voters have admin/IT level requirements for imaging software (do they?) and exclude those who have simple backup requirements I stand by my case, which is that "its the familiarity and experience with a given product that ultimately sways the votes". And given the numerous imaging backup solutions out there, I think it would be silly (if not obsessive) for someone to have tried them all.

Click to expand...

Nah - you are just assuming things.

I HAVE done extensive tests and I know a lot of regulars have as well.

I have paid versions of Aoemi, Easus Todo and even an old Acronis licence. I put my money where my mouth is.

You are welcome to trawl through hundreds of previous posts about imaging here to see we have extensively tested them (and on Tenforums) if you do not believe me.

No point in discussing any more.

cereberus said:

Nah - you are just assuming things.

I HAVE done extensive tests and I know a lot of regulars have as well.

I have paid versions of Aoemi, Easus Todo and even an old Acronis licence. I put my money where my mouth is.

You are welcome to trawl through hundreds of previous posts about imaging here to see we have extensively tested them (and on Tenforums) if you do not believe me.

No point in discussing any more.

Click to expand...

Jeez guy, ease up. We are just introducing alternatives, it's not the end of the world. Macrium is doing fine and will survive. :)

Badger said:

Jeez guy, ease up. We are just introducing alternatives, it's not the end of the world. Macrium is doing fine and will survive. :)

Click to expand...

Whatever.

Stigg said:

Just a word of warning about AOMEI Backupper.
Over the years, I have seen some serious issues arise from it.

I am what you may call a backup enthusiast and have tried numerous backup applications over the years.

The positive side of AOMEI Backupper is that it has a very nice interface and is very simple to use.
The negative side is that it can cause complications on some systems.
I have never been able to isolate why some systems can seemingly have no problems, and some systems can be rendered unbootable.
I've had numerous discussions about it over the years on various forums. The official AOMEI support forum is not much help either.

Uninstallation can also present problems on some systems and once again render the system unbootable.
I have had to resort to third party uninstallers and even manual registry edits to fix some systems.

I don't wish to get into a debate about it or derail the thread. I understand that some systems don't have any problems.
I am just passing on my findings with it.

Final thought...
Don't rely on one image backup application, especially if you're testing another.

All the best.

Click to expand...

Are you aware of similar problems with a different app or apps?

I realize that this is an old thread, but this is a serious issue tossed up by a serious user.

Haydon said:

Are you aware of similar problems with a different app or apps?

I realize that this is an old thread, but this is a serious issue tossed up by a serious user.

Click to expand...

I've been using Aoemi's Backupper but their tech support's latest response to my question regarding when they would be fixing the bootable USB stick DPI issue which causes their menu/fonts/text to display very small has left a lot to be desired. Well that response below has lost you a customer! How can they even think that problem is acceptable and has remained at least in the last 3 releases. Here's tech supports actual reply today to the question I asked them the other day regarding the DPI issue:

Thank you so much for contacting us.
We will fix the issue, but we don't know the ETA, sorry.
If you have any other questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us back.
Stay healthy and take care!
Best Regard,
Fiona

@Badger Although you quoted my post #345, you tossed up a completely different issue.

I am hoping for comments on the issue that @Stigg originally tossed up in post #77 and that I quoted in my post #345.

In short, the issue is: Does AOMEI Backupper causes problems on the host computer, problems that may not even be related to the backup functionality as such?

For the original description of the issue, see post #77 or the quote in post #345.

Haydon said:

@Badger Although you quoted my post #345, you tossed up a completely different issue.

I am hoping for comments on the issue that @Stigg originally tossed up in post #77 and that I quoted in my post #345.

In short, the issue is: Does AOMEI Backupper causes problems on the host computer, problems that may not even be related to the backup functionality as such?

For the original description of the issue, see post #77 or the quote in post #345.

Click to expand...

I've personally never experienced the scenario where removing it from my system caused the system to become unbootable. How was it removed from that system etc...? Here, I always use Revo Uninstaller to do those kinds of tasks.

GrayOldman1 said:

I will tell you my problem with Macrium Reflect. It works fine if I save the file to a hard drive in my computer. I can restore the file. NOW here is the problem. I have a NAS and I store backups on it. It works fine for saving the backup BUT can not retrieve it. For some unknown reason it drops the Nic driver. Now I have an open ticket on it. Tech tried to fix my problem and after 90 minutes he gave up. Only way to get the file is use copy and paste with windows. Macrium Reflect is fine if you only want one copy of the back up. BUT for me more places to save that copy is better. AOMIE Backupper does the job for me. It sees all my devices and works great with my NAS. saving and retrieving the file.

Click to expand...

My back up speed is up to 1.7Gbps (15 minutes at the most) using a second hard drive on the same PC for storing images. What is the speed like saving images on NAS?
Why save it on NAS when you can add a second drive on any PC via USB?

Haydon said:

Are you aware of similar problems with a different app or apps?

I realize that this is an old thread, but this is a serious issue tossed up by a serious user.

Click to expand...

Hi, Haydon.

My current three imaging applications are Macrium Reflect, TeraByte Image For Windows and Drive Snapshot.
I've been using them for a long time without any problematic issues. Occasionally, an update might cause a minor issue such as the recent well documented one with Macrium Reflect v8.0.7167. But nothing serious.

It's been a while now since I put AOMEI Backupper through tests. At the time that I encountered the problem, there were lots of similar issues posted on the poorly run AOMEI Forum. My own personal opinion of AOMEI Support is that it's terrible. It's as if you're chatting with someone who has little or no knowledge of their own application.

I've had a lot of sleeps since I encountered the problem, but as far as I can remember, the exact error I was getting was "INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE". Some people were reporting that error due to different AOMEI Backupper causes. For example, some were due to bad restorations and some due to the uninstallation. Some were other causes.

As I've said previously, "Don't rely on just one backup application". But in my case, I didn't encounter the problem until a long time (not sure how long) after I had installed it. Maybe I could have found an old backup that preceded the date of installation, but I elected to only restore an alternative backup to the time prior to uninstalling AOMEI Backupper. This obviously made my computer bootable again.

I then tried uninstalling AOMEI Backupper using Revo Uninstaller, but after a reboot, the problem still persisted. So, I restored an alternative backup again just prior to uninstalling AOMEI Backupper.

Once again, the computer was bootable. This time I uninstalled it again. I'm pretty sure that I also used Revo Uninstaller again, but before rebooting, I manually searched through the registry using Registry Workshop. Registry Workshop is much faster at searching than Windows Registry Editor and also has "Undo" functionality. I didn't document everything I removed, but I think there were still many registry entries left behind, including Services. I also deleted, files folders and schedules, although the latter should not have been causing problems if they were no longer loading.

I wasn't going to bring this up again, as I've moved on from AOMEI Backupper.
But seeing you asked, I thought I would respond to you with my best recollections.
I don't want to get into a debate with someone saying that "mine is working fine" etc.
I understand some may not have these problems. It may only affect specific systems. They may have even completely fixed it now.

Disregarding all of the above. I think the terrible support alone is a good enough reason not to use it. Backup applications need to be reliable and you need to know that you can rely on support, if needed. It's your data that we're talking about.
All the best, Haydon.

Some links (Some old, some recent):

I've had that issue with "inaccessible boot device" with Aomei, but only when migrating an OS to a new SSD. It never bothered me because its easy to fix. All I have to do is boot a WinPE flash drive with DISM++ on it and select the OS drive then fix boot and done.

@Stigg Thanks for the comments, I gave you 'Great Support' appreciation

AOMEI backupper killed my Windows multi boot system.
I didn't even use the program!
I installed it, opened it, just to have a look at its layout.
Suddenly some (suspisious) window showed up and disappeared right away.
The next time I started my computer, all of the multi boot options resulted in boot errors.
No more Windows 11, no more Windows 10, no more Windows 7, no more Windows XP.
Lucky me, I had a backup of Windows 11, made with Clonezilla. (Quite a difficult command line based program to work with, by the way.)
I restored the backup image with Rescuezilla. Remember that name: R E S C U E Z I L L A.
Rescuezilla is a Graphic User Interface with Clonezilla built in.
Now I have my Windows 11 back and running smoothly.
But Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10 can still not be booted. They are all still on my three internal hard disks (Windows 7 and Windows 10 are on one hard disk that I partitioned) and visible with Windows 11 Explorer.
No matter what I try with Windows Rescue, BCDedit, chkdsk, off line virus/malware scanners, Windows Defender, nothing works.

So, yeah, WARNING: AOMEI is a system killer.

If you're looking for a reliable program to get your entire system back & running, really, Rescuezilla is the answer to the harm, done by AOMEI...

ruudtes said:

AOMEI backupper killed my Windows multi boot system.
I didn't even use the program!
I installed it, opened it, just to have a look at its layout.
Suddenly some (suspisious) window showed up and disappeared right away.
The next time I started my computer, all of the multi boot options resulted in boot errors.
No more Windows 11, no more Windows 10, no more Windows 7, no more Windows XP.
Lucky me, I had a backup of Windows 11, made with Clonezilla. (Quite a difficult command line based program to work with, by the way.)
I restored the backup image with Rescuezilla. Remember that name: R E S C U E Z I L L A.
Rescuezilla is a Graphic User Interface with Clonezilla built in.
Now I have my Windows 11 back and running smoothly.
But Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10 can still not be booted. They are all still on my three internal hard disks (Windows 7 and Windows 10 are on one hard disk that I partitioned) and visible with Windows 11 Explorer.
No matter what I try with Windows Rescue, BCDedit, chkdsk, off line virus/malware scanners, Windows Defender, nothing works.

So, yeah, WARNING: AOMEI is a system killer.

If you're looking for a reliable program to get your entire system back & running, really, Rescuezilla is the answer to the harm, done by AOMEI...

Click to expand...

AOMEI Backupper is not compatible with Win98 (See Site)

Interesting post from someone who just joined and 1st msg and against AOMEI Backupper.
You sure sound like you are selling this product.

AOMEI Backupper is NOT A KILLER.
I have been using AOMEI Backupper Professional for YEARS now on a desktop with Windows11 Pro.
So you say after properly installing AOMEI Backupper Professional and after a reboot the program it killed your multi boot.
No way unless you did a backup and stopped a reinstall.
Maybe you had a problem before this whole thing started and finally your bootup failed.

Iggy_AZ said:

Are you sure you aren't selling that product....?

Click to expand...

Unlikely to make anything from it, Clonezilla is free and open source, so is Rescuezilla that's based on it....

ruudtes said:

AOMEI backupper killed my Windows multi boot system.
I didn't even use the program!
I installed it, opened it, just to have a look at its layout.
Suddenly some (suspisious) window showed up and disappeared right away.
The next time I started my computer, all of the multi boot options resulted in boot errors.
No more Windows 11, no more Windows 10, no more Windows 7, no more Windows XP.
Lucky me, I had a backup of Windows 11, made with Clonezilla. (Quite a difficult command line based program to work with, by the way.)
I restored the backup image with Rescuezilla. Remember that name: R E S C U E Z I L L A.
Rescuezilla is a Graphic User Interface with Clonezilla built in.
Now I have my Windows 11 back and running smoothly.
But Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10 can still not be booted. They are all still on my three internal hard disks (Windows 7 and Windows 10 are on one hard disk that I partitioned) and visible with Windows 11 Explorer.
No matter what I try with Windows Rescue, BCDedit, chkdsk, off line virus/malware scanners, Windows Defender, nothing works.

So, yeah, WARNING: AOMEI is a system killer.

If you're looking for a reliable program to get your entire system back & running, really, Rescuezilla is the answer to the harm, done by AOMEI...

Click to expand...

Supported Operating Systems​

Post By AOMEI Updated October 19, 2022

• Microsoft Windows XP (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Vista (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows 7 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows 8/8.1 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows 10 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows 11 (all editions)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2003 R2 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Home Server (WHS) 2011 and Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2011
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2(all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (all editions)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2022 (all editions)

Iggy_AZ said:

AOMEI Backupper is not compatible with Win98 (See Site)

Interesting post from someone who just joined and 1st msg and against AOMEI Backupper.
You sure sound like you are selling this product.

AOMEI Backupper is NOT A KILLER.
I have been using AOMEI Backupper Professional for YEARS now on a desktop with Windows11 Pro.
So you say after properly installing AOMEI Backupper Professional and after a reboot the program it killed your multi boot.
No way unless you did a backup and stopped a reinstall.
Maybe you had a problem before this whole thing started and finally your bootup failed.

Funny how you address your msg and trying to sell another backup program and tell us numerous times about how it is spelled correctly.
Are you sure you aren't selling that product and complaining about AOMEI Backupper Professional just for us to look up your program?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Click to expand...

Yeah - AOMEI is fine. Not my favourite tool but very reliable.

I once had an issue after doing a restore with a multiboot menu getting messed up but only took a few minutes to restore boot menu using bcdboot command.

So yes killer is a gross exaggeration.

ruudtes said:

I restored the backup image with Rescuezilla. Remember that name: R E S C U E Z I L L A.
Rescuezilla is a Graphic User Interface with Clonezilla built in.

Click to expand...

I tried Rescuezilla. Good experience.

Linux-based, free (donation-ware). The interface is simple, elegant and minimalist. Only works from a boot UFD, which is fine for me. I created an image of the whole internal disk without problems. Slow compared to Terabyte IFL, about the same image size. The GUI includes some basic Linux utilities, including GParted, a simple partition manager.

(First of all: Windows 98 is on my computer, but I have to choose IDE instead of AHCI in the bios to get it running, so AOMEI was not used on Windows 98.)

I was triggered to send this message by someone on this forum who had heard of problems, especially boot problems, caused by AOMEI.
Second reason for sending this message were the many complaints about unbootable Windows versions on the AOMEI site. One of the AOMEI helpdesk people admitted there was an error, but that it was fixed.

I am not advertising RESCUEZILLA, no need, it is freeware. Strange reaction, Iggy.
Rescuezilla saved my ass, that's all.

Again: I DID NOT USE THE PROGRAM. I only opened it. So I did nothing wrong. Read, Iggy, read:
I opened it, had a glance at its layout, and I closed it. And meanwhile the harm was done.
And it DID kill my system.
I did not backup and did no reinstall.

It is not an exaggeration, Cerberus, it is my experience. And I read from your respons that you had boot problems too... related to AOMEI? If it was, then that's another proof of AOMEI being untrustworthy...

I recovered a Windows 11 Clonezilla backup image with Rescuezilla, so Windows 11 is up and running again, it sees all the three internal hard disks (Windows 7 and Windows 10 are on a partitioned hard disk).
I tried many things - from within Windows 11 - to resolve the multi boot problem, also bcdedit (cleaned it and set it up from scratch): to no avail.

I am beginning to think that AOMEI is just some Chinese people's copy behaviour result - AOMEI's moving from China to the USA didn't change that - from people without proper knowledge of complicated systems. *

To read an AOMEI help desk responding to many boot error customer complaints with "the program had an error, but it is fixed" is the final proof for me...

* remember the years that the Chinese government encouraged their people to produce steel? There was a documentary with video footage of a Chinese steel factory: what they did there was throwing all kinds of junk, especially old car batteries, in the ovens, thus producing steel that was highly contaminated with heavy metals, VERY toxious.
Just an example of what happens when (retarded) people without proper knowledge decide to join in with the rest of the world...

When I updated my ComputerWorld story How to make a Windows 10 or 11 image backup last October, I had to steer away from Macrium because of the impending end of free supported versions. I ended up picking Easus ToDo, but found AOMEI to be nearly equal in terms of capability and use. IMO, the bootable media from ToDo is a bit better than that from ToDo but it's pretty much a wash. The key point is "backup early and often," to be ready to recover from problems and issues.

Great discussion, overall.

--Ed--