Glossary

This glossary explains the terms used in this guide in alphabetical order.

Backup strategy: Determines whether a full backup is followed by incremental backups, by differential backups, or whether only full backups are created. See Backup options.

Change backup: An incremental or differential backup. It depends on the full backup and, for incremental backups, on the earlier change backups of the chain.

Check & Repair: A tool that checks the Windows component store, the system files, the system drive and the Windows Recovery Environment and repairs them where possible. It does not check backup files. See Tools.

Differential backup: Stores all changes since the last full backup. A restore needs the full backup and the selected differential backup.

Direct forensic backup: A forensic backup that reads the disk directly, so the original state is not changed. Only possible in Fortress Mode.

Duplicate drives: Transfers an exact copy of a drive to another drive, for example when replacing a disk. All data on the target drive is deleted. See Duplicate drives.

Execution policy: Determines after how many change backups a new full backup is created.

Exclusion: The list of files and folders that are left out of every backup. See File names and exclusions.

Forensic backup: Copies every sector of a drive, including unused areas, and therefore needs storage space for the full size of the drive.

Fortress Mode: A protected recovery environment in which the PC is restarted. It gives full access to the entire system, including locked drives and the system partition, and depends on a working Windows Recovery Environment. See Fortress Mode and startup medium.

Full backup: Stores all selected data and starts a new chain of backups.

Hotplug backup: A backup that starts automatically as soon as the configured backup drive is connected. See Schedules and automation.

Image: A backup of entire drives or partitions. An image can be restored or mounted as a virtual drive.

Incremental backup: Stores the changes since the previous backup. A restore needs the full backup and every incremental backup up to the selected one.

Mount: Makes the drives of a backup available as virtual drives in Windows, so their files can be copied. See Restore files.

O&O BuildPE: The program that creates the startup medium or integrates the recovery environment into the Windows boot menu.

O&O DiskImage format: The standard backup format with the file extension .omg. It supports all backup options and the restore with O&O DiskImage.

Report: The record of a backup operation with its time, duration, parameters, warnings and errors and its status. See Reports and logs.

Startup medium: A bootable USB stick, CD/DVD or ISO file with O&O DiskImage. It starts a PC without a working operating system and runs a recovery environment based on Windows PE.

Target folder: A folder in which new backups are stored by default. Several target folders are used in descending order of their free space.

Used sectors: The default backup technology. Copies only the sectors of a drive that contain data.

Validation: Checks a backup file for integrity, either automatically after every backup or later with Check backup.

VHD / VHDX: The Microsoft formats for virtual hard disks. O&O DiskImage can create and mount backups in these formats and convert backups to VHDX; it cannot restore them.

Windows PE: The Windows Preinstallation Environment, on which the recovery environment of the startup medium is based.

WinRE: The Windows Recovery Environment installed on the local disk. Fortress Mode depends on it.