hi there I have an unstable windows install (I know the old joke trust me but its causing an issue. yes I know this is a linux forum one second

the pc is i7 16 gigs of ram and 2tb hd with a 32gb built in ssd cache.

I purchased a 4tb usb 3.0 to use as a destination.

now under windows this HD is constantly disconnecting from the USB port every 5 minutes. (nice beeping and explorer popup) under a redo backup usb stick or other linux usb stick this box just hums away, I looked at clonezilla and redo backup. both have there pro's and cons a major con for me is easily extracting individual files) I plan to clean up my backup once I have it done remove all os files and redundancy, quarantine it and grab images docs and videos as I need an iso and important archives.

my eventual os plans may be linux on my primary box not sure yet, I love linux Love my slackware and miss a nice stable os. I just have some software I must use and want to see on a test box if i can get it working on wine or playonlinux or virtualbox to my own satisfaction if I can then by by winders and hello clean os again. but that doesn't affect my backup.

I was thinking rsync? just put in a usb linux variant mount the usb external and rsync the entire drive, its usb 3.0 so I am hoping 24 hours is enough to do it. redo backup did about 50% in a test run in 24 hours no issues why I know something is up with the usb drivers in my current windows box, linux just hums (of course it does, its linux)

gui would be nice, if I have the wife doing it or such, a windows or linux readable format (no format would be best) just raw files copied over to a folder on the external 4tb usb. I am just googled out tonight and figured I'd ask here i am sure I'll get the a few suggestions in no time to narrow down my search, usb sticks I got anywhere from 256mb to 64gb, a 16g and a 4g right now as test boots on my main pc.

anyone? sorry if bumping is taboo just figured since so many read it a few would have some ideas.

Bumping is counter productive. The forum software regularly 'bumps' it automatically into the zero reply list. All you've done is remove your thread from the zero reply list.

Besides, as far as I can see, you already have a solution of sorts. rsync will work as will cp
Both can be used to backup only new files that aren't already in the backup.

In Linux land most people are, or have been, sys-admins and thus there are many different backup strategies. Whereas the average Windows user is used to having the machine tell him/her when and how to do backups.

I just opened Synaptic package manager and typed "backup" into the search box. There's plenty of packages related to the topic. Choosing one really is just about reading up on them and choosing one.

Find one in your chosen distro's repositories that fulfils all you prerequisites and install it.

I suspect the auto-bump will have expired.
I ignored the post because the OP was too demanding - maybe others felt likewise.

If I need to ensure a machine can be restored in toto, I use mondo - and verify the data as it's being written. Takes a while.
Then I create 3 copies of the CD images so I can merge them if there is a fault in one of them on restore. See ddrescue.

If I'm looking to create a good backup of an entire (Linux) filesystem, I'll use fsarchiver - it verifies the data for me on the way.
For ntfs, ntfsclone - note it's no good for recreating bootable NTFS boot partitions if target partitions are different to the source(s). Data is still good.

All these require restore to a partition and mounting so files can be restored - so they fail the OPs needs.

If you do not use the ntfsclone special image format, you do not need to restore to a partition. A simple loop mount suffices. The downside is the potentially large waste of storage space on the backup media.
From 'man ntfsclone'