bare-metal recovery

Bare-metal recovery refers to the process of restoring a computer system from a complete system image, allowing it to be rebuilt from scratch without relying on the operating system or installed applications. On Windows, the legacy Backup and Restore (Windows 7) tool provides system-image functionality that can be used for bare-metal recovery, enabling restoration of the entire system state including the operating system, settings, and files. This contrasts with file-level backups like File History or cloud-based Windows Backup, which protect personal data but not the full system. Understanding bare-metal recovery is essential for disaster planning, as it ensures a system can be fully restored after hardware failure, corruption, or other catastrophic events.