Windows 10: Upgrading Win8.1 to Win10: Best way to insure fallback capability

I have a fairly new HP Laptop, 16GB RAM, 64bitOS, 1TB HDD, built-in CD/DVD burner. I just finished creating a rescue DVD using Macrium Reflect Free. I'm caught in the "automatic free upgrade" pending upgrade from Win8.1 to Win10 pushed from Microsoft scheduled for 2 days from now. I keep rescheduling/delaying the upgrade until I have created a local system image backup on one of my drives using Macrium Reflect Free. My internal C boot drive has 230GB used and 690GB unused. I have another external HDD with 372GB used and 558GB unused (drive F). I just added a new 1TB HDD My Passport Ultra with 930GB unused (drive G). I'm planning to dedicate this drive to system image backups only.

I'm seeing comments on the web strongly suggesting a system image backup of Win8.1 prior to upgrading to Win10.

1) Is there a way I can remove myself from the "MS Win10 upgrade robot" until I feel I'm ready?
2) What's the best I can do to insure I could go back to Win8.1 with the system image that existed before upgrading to Win10?
3) What else should I be considering to insure I have sound backup and restore capability?

:)

 

Upgrading from Win7 to Win10. What's the best way to Back Up?

I was just about to back up my PC when I realised I may have a problem. I will have fewer User Accounts on my new WIn10 than I have on this Win7 --> Win 10.

Is it possible to back up selected parts of a PC eg Main User Account?

 

Upgrading from Win7 to Win10. What's the best way to Back Up?

Many thanks for this. I wasn't able to set up my new Win10 laptop as planned because of problems first caused by SAPE.Heur.862EO (now resolved) and then the 19 MS updates.

That delay was good because it means that I can look at Acronis before setting up my WIn10 laptop this weekend - fingers crossed!.

 

A rescue disk from MR is only a tool that can be used to repair windows boot problems; alone, it can not be used to restore your PC to an earlier state.

The best way, IMHO, is to take a full image with MR the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive. You can boot from the rescue disk later and use it to restore a backup.

 

Yeah, create an image of the system hard disk with a backup software. It allows you the restore your former system exactly as it was before the update.

 

Yup. As they have both said

Use Macrium Reflect to

• Make the image on to a second drive
• Create a Macrium bootable rescue disk to ensure access to your Macrium image, should Windows become unusable.