Windows 10: Creating System / OS Image in Win 10 Pro

I am looking to create a system image for Windows 10 (the drive the OS / programs are installed on only). I am reading this tutorial and was a bit confused on a few things:

How to create an image backup in Windows 10 and restore it, if need be | PCWorld

First, I don't have an empty drive. But I do have back up drives with enough spare space for an image of Drive C. Can I make an image of Drive C and place it on Drive D without touching any of the data on that drive?

Secondly, after I make some hardware changes and confirm they work, I'd like to delete the image to regain the space. How exactly would I go about doing this?

And is the Image utility built into Windows 10 perfectly fine, or are there better free alternatives?

:)

 

System Image

Just create a folder on your D drive and call it something like Windows 7 image. Move the Win 7 image folder into that and the Win 10 image Won't overwrite it. I did this on all my systems so that I had a 7 backup incase something bad happened when upgrading.

 

Help With Creating System Image. Win 10 Pro 64 Bit.

I have but it has not generated an answer

 

Any imaging software will let you create an image to any drive, DVD, network location USB etc. Using compression it's a lot smaller than the drive. It just creates a file which can simply be deleted like any file. Magnum is one of the most used free imaging there are lots of free ones better than Windows that let you create a bootable disk to restore. All right a file so don't effect anything on the disk

 

Built in system image works fine. You can use 3rd party alternatives which have a simple gui and offer some extra fuctions.

Aomei is probably the easiest to use and works well. The free (standard ) version may be all you need.

Best Free Backup Software for Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, XP

 

I'll probably give that a try. To restore an imagine made via Aomei, must I use the program or will Win 10 be able to read / restore the file on its own?

 

Image files are generally only usable by the program that created them.

Windows own imaging is absolutely fine, in fact its better than many seem to admit. You delete an image simply by right clicking the file and deleting (as you would any other file). The only additional thing to do is to make sure you run a normal disk clean-up and ensure you delete any shadow copies. These are 'invisible' files that Windows would use to reinstate a whole sequence of images where you pick the one you want. Its only two seconds of a job to delete them, if you don't then you don't recover all the space back, that's all.

 

This forum's favourite is Macrium Reflect

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect Windows 10 Backup Restore Tutorials

You can store image on other drives without affecting data.

It is a bad plan to store image on a different partition on same drive as c partition in case drive fails.

Equally not a good plan to delete backed up image for same reason i.e. drive with C partition fails.

An external drive is a better idea in case you get ransomware.