Every Windows user needs a robust backup plan in place. And that backup should include a full image of your entire Windows system drive. That way, should you encounter a catastrophic crash, restoring your PC to a working state is a matter of minutes, rather than an anxious few hours trying to fix the underlying problem while worrying about your data.

Once upon a time, the tool of choice for this job was Windows’ own Backup tool. That was then supplanted by Macrium Reflect Free, but the free version was dropped some time ago now and Macrium has switched to a subscription model to rub salt into the wounds.

Thankfully, Hasleo Backup Suite Free emerged to first rival Macrium Reflect Free and now supplant it in turn. Despite the somewhat rustic user interface, Hasleo does everything Reflect did – and more. After launching, click Backup to reveal it has all your needs covered: a System Backup automatically selects all the partitions required – including your Windows drive of course – to restore Windows to a fully working state. You’ll also see options to back up your choice of partition(s) or disk(s), plus a File Backup option for covering your data backup needs.

Each option runs you through a wizard – you can back up to any internal, external or network drives that are visible in Windows, back up to a schedule and help maximise backups while minimising space by combining full, differential and incremental backups to ensure you have a range of recovery options to choose from.

Backups can be compressed, encrypted and – crucially – automatically verified on completion. Once taken, you can both restore and browse backups by mounting them as a virtual drive (perfect when you simply want to recover a single folder or file). Running out of backup space? You can also delete and merge images to consolidate your backups.

Hasleo Backup Suite can also be used to clone systems, partitions and drives when upgrading disks, plus offers an emergency disk creation tool to allow you to use (and restore) backups from outside Windows.

The program is constantly undergoing development to expand its capabilities and improve performance – anyone switching from Macrium should find little difference in performance or backup sizes, but note your old backups will be rendered redundant when you switch.