Windows 10: Make a image

Does win 10 have a image program built in to image the whole hard drive??

:)

 

How to make a system image ?

So that link should step you thru making said image.

 

How to make a system image ?

I regularly back up my computer to an external portable hard drive.

I only wanted to make a copy of my Windows 10 that had been upgraded to Version1709, Build: 16299.19.

This to me is the system image that should my computer fail, then I can take my files from the back up of the entire hard drive and again have the latest version of Windows 10.

I don't want to go back to Windows 7. This 1 year old computer came with Windows 10 already installed upon it however it did not come with a back up image of Windows 10, that could be used if the OS became corrupt or failed.

 

Yes but it goes by the name of Windows 7 backup for some strange reason. It's unreliable to say the least & many people including myself use Macrium Reflect to create images & clones of our hard drives.

 

Some people have luck with the Windows Imaging software that comes with Windows. Most people prefer a 3rd party app like Macrium Reflect, Acronis or Easeus Todo Backup.
For Windows, Go to Settings/Update and Security/Backup/Go to Backup and Restore (Windows 7) on the left panel, choose Create a System Image.

 

I have Reflect but I am dumb and have trouble with it working to restore. I make a boot dsk and image my computer to a external hd but I am not doing something right

 

Perhaps you should format the drive to work with NTFS if it has not already been set?

I have had success with the sdclt.exe utility (Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore (Windows 7)\Create System Image) and it restores my images correctly with a system repair disk.

 

I am one of those. The trick to getting it to work reliably seems to be not to try to do anything too out of the ordinary. DON'T try renaming the backup image - you may be tempted to in order to keep multiple images. Renaming, copying or moving images is a recipe for making them unrecognised when you come to restore them. This (the failure to recognise a restorable image) is it's main failing.

For a reliable restore, you should make the boot media at the same time and on the same system as you imaged. If you have a CD/DVD drive, you can take the option to make a boot CD that it offers at the end of making the image. If you want a boot USB you have to make that separately. Make a Recovery Drive USB, it has the same software on it as the boot CD would have.

After making the image, boot from your recovery media and get as far as finding the image to restore. The restore itself seems reliable, if you can find the image it should restore without a problem.

 

Go to tutorials for excellent guide

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect Windows 10 Backup Restore Tutorials

 

What I find works best is instead of renaming the backup files, I store them in a new directory and Windows does not seem to detect that or cause any further issues, however obviously if you do keep multiple backups on one point of storage - you can lose all the backups even easier.

IF you're trying to save money, create directories and move the WindowsImageBackup into a new folder with a differing name.
Otherwise, buy a new HDD.
Works every time.

 

Yes, there are ways and means that work, but they are fraught with hidden dangers, mostly to do with the volume shadow copies that are made at the same time. It's these that seem to be the root of losing track of the images, though experimenting hasn't pinned down the exact mechanism. One thing that definitely kills most (if not all) previous Win10 images is to save a Win7 image to the same WindowsImageBackup folder.

As such, for someone using Backup & Restore to make system images for the first time, the best advice is not to try to do anything it wasn't designed for. Don't mess with it and it should work reliably.

 

That's something I learned. I do not plan to keep a Windows 7 installation anywhere, I'm all about the Windows 10 life now. I've moved on from that.

So is it proven that a Windows 7 and Windows 10 image backup on the same hard disk drive in different directories causes faults or has this not been proven?

 

I do keep W10 and W7 images on the same drive for my test machine (System Two in my specs below). But they must never be kept in the same WindowsImageBackup folder, else you loose sight of the W10 images. So I have two, one I've named WindowsImageBackup.W10 and another named WindowsImageBackup.W7. I rename the appropriate one back to WindowsImageBackup when I need to restore or save an image to it. Also, in order to restore a W7 image you must boot from the W7 recovery CD (which I've copied to a bootable USB). More on how I image my test machine here:
Multiple System Images using Backup & Restore - advice?