How to make a System Image backup

I followed you advice & made both a back up image file and usb boot drive. When I had a fail and got to the point where Windows would install my image file, it said it wouldn't because Windows had been loaded through BIOS & the image file was made with Windows loaded through EFI. I originally loaded Windows 7 Home through a disc & did the free streaming upgrade to Windows 10. Would making a clone, instead of an image, have avoided this?
Thanks for you help - Greg

Well FINALLY. For I have been trying to recover a FULL computer; after the internal HDD failed. And I have a "backed up" HDD; with even a "computer" Image and a "Shadow Copy" plus every Files on the old HDD.

But NO one could tell me how to recover my computer; and told me only how they recover files. That will NOT fill my wants.! Yet I have backed up my computer EVERY night; for years; with "ALL" things backed up. But I did not know what to do; when my internal HDD failed. Not even Microsoft could tell me. Sad, but OH so true.

And you told us that in a short time. WOW!. Thank you kind Sir for that. Awesome!

How does my computer find my image? I put it on the c: and a USB. It still doesn't show up.

i dont want the whole systems back upp man...everyonees only showing that.i just want a refresh file and some basic apps i installed .not the whole damn drive.

If you just wanted to back up your files in your My Documents folder, wouldn't it be faster to just back up one folder, in the My Documents folder, at a time? With a fast external hard drive?

Is it possible to make a System Image backup in pendrive?

You should have mentioned that in order to load back your back up you need to have a system recovery USB drive in the first place

Can someone give insight as to why I would do this rather than just using Windows’ built in backup feature in the Update & Security section of Settings? It seems this is limited to one-to-one capability whereas the Update & Security feature allows for multiple drives to be backed up at once

Excellent video my friend

Quick question Dave.
if I do system image for just "C" partition only and not include "D" and "E" partitions of that same internal hard drive, so suppose in future if I need to restore my system image which has just the "C" partition, so will the other partitions (D,E) be affected or formatted/deleted upon the restoration of that system image? Or will the other partitions remain intact as original states as they weren't disturbed in the first place ??
Thanks in advance

After the backup, can i still use the external harddrive for other stuff, because i have a lot of free space left?

Thanks a lot for this video tutorial sir.

Thank you for great video, i request to Make a video imaging through server or wifi connectivity

Since its an image can the drive have other data on it as well?

Does anyone know how to do this with M1 Macbook?

Yes, years ago, w/win8, my drive would lose its mind; repair wouldn't work, but I could get into the "advanced options" and restore the system image backups I made. I got used to doing this on a regular basis.
It HAS been a long time. Originally, I had to start from scratch and re-install updates'n'things. Later, I discovered I could make a system image that included installed programs, etc.
Back then, I could make incremental system image backups so it was pretty slick.
Thanks for the advice about using a quality usb drive for the recover drive in your prior video.

Hi mate, Can we make a backup of our computer and replace our old hard drive to ssd drive for faster speed

I have windows 10 on VHD, I plan to make a system image for it, then install a new windows 10 on a normal partition, then restore the backup on the new windows, will this work ?

What do I do if windows is telling me my flash drive “is not a valid backup location” ? Please help!

Don't know if any have had this issue when creating a Windows 10 System Image but I tried to successfully create a system image 5 times and each time the status would reach 97% then stall and never fully complete. Then a thought dawned on me and that was to NOT hide my desktop icons and make sure the "Show desktop icons" was selected from the right mouse click desktop context menu. I was finally able to create a Windows 10 System Image after much frustration! 😃👍

Does this process will bring back the applications we installed as well

Hi Dave, if I have backed up my computer into a flash drive. How do I get them back from the flash drive if I need them

I’m late to this dance but I think this video is missing a couple of steps.
When I plugged my brand new Seagate 1 TB hard drive it did not show up. Why?? Because it did not have a drive assigned to it. That caused me a few hours of searching to find out why and how.
So I got a drive letter assigned to it and it now shows up indicating available space but no files on it.
When I now follow the above instructions as to how to create a system image I get the following message and I will not enter full message
“There is not enough disk space to create the volume volume shadow copy on the storage location” blah blah blah…. The message goes on a lot of information none of which makes sense to me as I have a 1tb empty hard drive.
So what do I need to do???
I want to use this as a new hard drive in my laptop which presently is only 236gb.
Thanks for any help.

Yes, I have had a "catastrophe" in the past: a power on/off situation in the 110v Household power ... it blinked on and off a few times in a second or so ... resulting in a power surge that took out the hard drives in both my Linux Desktop and my Windows Desktop. The drives in both of these computers had given me their money's worth ... over 8 years old each, I think, and I needed an excuse to upgrade to SSDs in both. Restoring my Linux Desktop hard drive was not too hard, but there were peculiarities that needed to be addressed: The size of the original hard drive was bigger than the SSD I replace it with. The Windows Desktop was a bit of a chore reinstalling my licensed copy of Windows 10. I am just a user and not a computer repair tech and I am quite aware of how easy it is to do even more damage to your equipment and software and files if you don't do EXACTLY what is required. The computer industry is at least partly responsible for the confusion that users experience due to ambiguous terms and vague directions. Room for improvement. I have to thank you for your well thought out videos and your clear communication on the subject on hand. Always remember that those listening to your videos may not and probably don't have the same level of understanding that you have.

What if the harddrive is completely dead? Can you use the backup file to restore everything on a NEW harddrive?

I would not trust so much in Windows tools and especially for backups, I tell you from experience (and a lot)

im trying to put my format on NTFS but it will erase all data but i need the drive to be on NTFS to make a back up and i dont know what to do

I'm like a FRENCH MAID--- I DONT DO WINDOWS.... but hopefully this would work very similar on LINUX (the BEST software)..

WANT TO FIX ALL windows problems PERMANENTLY??--- INSTALL LINUX!!

If you have a fresh out the box laptop can I just use a 64GB thumb drive while the system is still new?

thanks you! much help.

THANK YOU DAVE , was my first experience to install the windows 10 to a new ssd hard drive ,{into a old computer with windows 7 and a failing old hard disk drive }, everything was perfect THANKS to all your instructions clear and to the point . All our thanks and appreciations !

Probably a stupid question... I have numerous drives such as C, D, E and F, if I create a system image of only C, upon restoring from image it will not mess with the other drives at all? Thanks.

Best video I found so far regarding this process. Thank you very much.

Does this also save the state of the registry? And if so, when reverting back to a backup does it return the registry to the way it was when the system image was made?

pl point mw to your vid where system image backup can be made on a pendrive

I can't use the system image backup of Windows because my boot partition doesn't have a dedicated efi partition. The efi files are located within the C partition (my boot partition) as a folder. So when I try to create a system image backup, my C partition isn't visible, only the efi partition.
Do you have any solution for that?

BRAVO

Thank you. Your great.

write the following label in a blank media file. What on earth that means?

Great content, but well... the music was queit annoying.

Great video. One question, how does one know if the system image is a good image? Thanks!

You can just click reboot while holding shift and after 30 seconds you will get the same menu and go to troibleshoot so you don't have to turn on and turn off forcefully poor computer 3 times😂
At least in windows 10 (and probably win 11).

How about windows xp 32bit?
Thanks

Just used this now in 2024 ... brilliant thank you so much

Can I used 3rd party software like acronis for restoration of my image?

TERRIFIC story-telling and info, thank you!! a suggestion...add some graphic pop-up graphics that reinforce the spoken directions. or an illustration of the actual MS-pages, instead of screenshots (to make them absolutely-clear, even adding arrow :-). yep, the spoken word is essential, but here the visual is primary. sub'd/liked

thanks

If there is other data on the external hard drive other than the system image, will it remain safe while i restore the system image or will it be wiped clean? dumb question but data's at stake