TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

It's been a maxim in the backup industry for years that you can't image a live system. You always, always, always have to shut it down, boot from alternative media, and image that way.  Having spent more hours than I'd like on this, I can state this has always been true. Until now, apparently.  The Samsung Data Migration utility just imaged my live Windows 7 system, in all its glory, from a smaller M4 SSD to a larger 850 Pro SSD.  It took about 30 minutes.  It even kept the hidden system partition. Does nobody else realize what a godsend this is?  It's a working bare-metal restore solution for a live system. OK, yes, the Samsung utility only writes to Samsung SSDs.  (That's touted as a safety feature, as you're unlikely to have two Samsung SSDs in the same system, but we all know why that really is.) But, still - backup of a full image of my SSD on a live system?   Anytime I want to?  Really?   It's a god-damned miracle. In case...

The single best damn accessory you can buy for a PC is an internal SATA hard drive dock.  No, not the crappy external USB kind, the internal built-in SATA kind. Why?  Because: 0.  ZERO compatibility issues with anything.  It's SATA, works with USB boot stick, Hiren's Boot CD, UBCD, all other boot media, all third-party utilities, etc. 1.  It lets you plug in another hard drive and make hot backups daily. 2.  It lets you remove said drive and replace it with another in about 5 seconds.  Meaning now you have both hot (online) and cold (offline) backups, and are proof against nearly every virus out there (including ransomware).  Good for weekly, monthly and quarterly backups. 3.  It lets you take your backups offsite; now you are proof against disaster.  (Hey, a 10 months old backup is better than nada .) 4.  It lets you migrate your current HDD/SSD to a newer, replacement, and/or larger HDD/SDD very easily.  Which is ...

For my kids first console I went with the original Wii: Wii is best for kids, the games are (usually) pretty good, and the hardware and games are cheap.  What the Brits call a "cheap and cheerful" solution.  Six-year-olds can't tell the difference! I was lucky and managed to pick up a "softmodded" Wii, which had been modified to run game ISOs from an external hard disk.  This was good for me since most game discs are wearing out from inevitable wear and tear, and the Wii disc readers can't be too far behind.  Hard drive copies are impervious to both issues.   My system was blank (no games).  And I had no real idea how to use it or how it was set up, and the info on the web was horribly disorganized at best.  This information is aimed at any other late adopters who don't need to set it up, but do want to understand it. This guide presumes you have/use the following: -  Configurable USB Loader softmod for Wii. If your Wii shows "cfb" w...