AOMEI OneKey Recovery 1.6

Overview

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you system has failed to boot or it’s missing critical components for its correct functioning, then there are a few options you could try out in order to save it. Firstly, you could perform a system repair using the Windows’ installation CD, which has a high probability of success if the damage is not very severe; alternatively, you could just perform a System Restore, which will make your computer travel back in time to a working state. If you don’t have the installation disc though, or no restore points you could use, then the only solution left (if you don’t want to resort to a partition format) is to restore the system from a backup you made with a 3^rd party software like AOMEI OneKey Recovery. This program is very easy to use and save you in cases like these; it has only what you need and no unnecessary settings and buttons that make your life hard when the only thing you want to do is create a backup of your system or restore from an existing backup.

Installation

Installation is pretty straight-forward and has no difficult settings at all. In fact, the procedure is only a few steps long and the only settings you’ll have to deal with are the shortcut and installation directory ones. The main installation process is very quick and will finish in just a few seconds.

No malicious items are included in the setup package; 3^rd-party advertised software is not present in it either.

Supported operating systems are Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 (both 32-bit and 64-bit systems).

Interface

The program’s interface is modern and is as neat as it can get, without being boring or plain.

When you open OneKey Recovery, you will be presented with two options: OneKey System Backup and OneKey System Recovery. As you can tell, the first option is used for when you want to create a backup, whereas the second option is for restoring an existing backup. If you choose to create a backup, you will be navigated through a series of a very small number of steps in order to complete the process, and if you want to restore a backup you only have to select the partition that holds it.

Pros

The simple and practical way that OneKey Recovery works is probably the most important reason that it’s preferred over other backup and restore utilities. Literally, it takes no more than 3 clicks in order to create a backup and 2 clicks to restore one. The developers had “efficiency” and “effectiveness” on their minds when creating the program, which is what many people need when they lack experience or time.

When creating a backup, you will be prompted to create a recovery partition in your disk, in which the backup will be saved. Of course, you can update your backup recovery partition at any time with new data. To do that, you should repeat the same process as you would normally do and select the recovery partition that holds the backup you want to update. You can click the “Details” button to see more information about the backup changes. The recovery process in the Windows environment is the same; the only difference is that you select OneKey System Recovery in the main screen, and then proceed by selecting the recovery partition you want to restore (note that you can restore it to a different location by checking the “Restore to other location” checkbox and selecting the desired destination).

Of course, in case of a complete system failure and the inability to get past the boot menu, AOMEI OneKey Recovery includes a backup/restore from Windows PE (Pre-installation Environment) feature. So when your computer is booting up, can press the “A” or "F11" button to enter AOMEI Recovery environment and restore or backup your system. You can disable this option if you wish from the program’s settings, or only suppress the “Press ‘A’ for AOMEI OneKey Recovery” message that’s shown during system startup. This feature is available in computers with either BIOS or EFI/UEFI based systems.

Both MBR and GPT disks are supported.

The latest versions of AOMEI OneKey Recovery offer the option to save your System backup to other locations such as internal secondary disks, external hard drives, or removable USB flash drives.

Cons

For some, the lack of more advanced features and options (e.g. scheduled backups) could be a disadvantage.

Alternatives

AOMEI Backupper (freemium) is an alternative solution that has more features than its smaller brother OneKey Recovery. With Backupper you can backup/restore not only partitions, but file systems and personal files as well. In addition you can clone a partition, disk or volume, plus schedule backups. Differential and incremental backup features are present too. Other well-known backup/restore software are Acronis True Image (paid), Easeus Todo Backup (free) and Time Machine (paid).

Conclusion

It’s no secret that this program was designed only for those that don’t want to spend time figuring out how to backup their systems, and wish to quickly revert them to a previous, working state.