Windows 10 Windows 10 Newbie -- Image Creation/Restore

[Bill Meppiel]

going to install windows 10 for the first time
once complete, will install office and some other applications.
pull down any/all updates as needed

at that point I want to make an image of the hard drive
I have heard that Windows 10 comes with the ability to do this, store to an external drive, then create a bootup/restore disk that will point you to the image and allow you to format hard drive and restore that previously created image.

now the questions:
- is what I stated above true, the image creation and restore ability?
- will the image that I create consist of not only the OS but the entire hard drive contents? (office, etc)
- if I installed a new internal hard drive and did a restore will I run into issues where I need to re-validate my legal copy of windows 10 with microsoft?
- during the restore process, will the restore interface allow me to partition a hard drive or de-partition the hard drive before OS installation?

 

[Neemobeer]

Honestly I don't think most people use it they seem to use Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free a lot or Clonezilla - About

I personally never do images.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I recommend EaseUS TODO backup and recovery.

It's free, it is the easiest backup software to use that I've ever had, it literally will back up your hard drive with 3 mouse clicks.

If you have previously selected your save location, you open it, click System Backup, and then click on Proceed, that's it.

It's very fast, I've used if for many years.
It has never failed to recover my backup in all the times I've used it.

I had to use it 7 times just while I was beta testing Windows 10.

Link Removed

As they say, it really, really works. LOL

Mike

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

going to install windows 10 for the first time
once complete, will install office and some other applications.
pull down any/all updates as needed

at that point I want to make an image of the hard drive
I have heard that Windows 10 comes with the ability to do this, store to an external drive, then create a bootup/restore disk that will point you to the image and allow you to format hard drive and restore that previously created image.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>Answering your questions in Bold Italic font below:<<<<
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
now the questions:
- is what I stated above true, the image creation and restore ability?
>>>>Yes, we've been doing this for 20 years, but only recently, the last 5 years are there reliable products to do this across all hardware platforms; makes/models of Windows PCs.<<<<
- will the image that I create consist of not only the OS but the entire hard drive contents? (office, etc)
>>>>Yes.<<<<
- if I installed a new internal hard drive and did a restore will I run into issues where I need to re-validate my legal copy of windows 10 with microsoft?
>>>>No, not if you use one of the 3 recommended & tested Image Backup programs we thoroughly tested with W10. Mike mentioned one of those 3 programs, EASEus TODO. Neemo mentioned the 2nd one, MACRIUM REFLECT (which I use predominantly), and the 3rd, which is ACRONIS TRUEIMAGE. There are several other programs out there that claim to do this, but our testing shows that they are not reliable on all computers. Notable in the list of others is the Microsoft DISK IMAGE RECOVERY TOOL, which failed our testing quite badly.<<<<
- during the restore process, will the restore interface allow me to partition a hard drive or de-partition the hard drive before OS installation?

>>>>Answer to this one, is YES, since the restore interface is actually part of the W10 INSTALLER PROGRAM. You can partition your hard drive at that time, just prior to the W10 Installer installing all the windows systems files and apps. However, it can be tricky to use if you haven't done it before. I would recommend instead using the built-in WINDOWS DISK MANAGMENT TOOL, or a good 3rd party partitioning tool such as GPARTED on the UBCD Linux boot CD (an advanced tool).<<<<

>>>>Hope that answers your questions. <<<<
<<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>>

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi agian.

Yes the backup will contain everything on your C:\ drive, all of the installed software, boot partition it will restore the entire partition to just the way it was when you backed it, up.

The software will create a DVD or Flash Drive that will boot your computer and do the recovery even if the computer is un-bootable.

One more thing to think about...

I install all of my software on the second partition not on C:\

All you have to do when installing the software is change the C:\ to D:\ and leave the rest of the install address alone.
Windows will create all the folders you need on the second partition and it will work just as if they are installed on C:\.

The reason that I do this is so that my C:\ partition is as small as possible.

Backing up 100 GB of material only takes a short time, constantly updating 500 or 600 GB of data can be a pain.

You want to have some free space on your C:\ drive so I usually make mine about 200 GB but the actual amount of data on my drive is about 140 GB. My software drive has over 500 GB of data on it.

What I do install on C:\ is all the little odd ball stuff like CCleaner, Malwarebytes and I do put Office at the default address, but all my graphics software is on one of my other partitions.

And remember you need to update the backups anytime you make any major changes to your computer.

That's why you don't want it to take hours to do.

And you don't want to save important data like music and photos that can't be lost on your C:\ drive, put them on the second partition and make sure you back them up to an external drive or DVDs.

Hope this helps.

Mike

 

[Hermitkrab]

I'm using easUS Todo, also, Mike.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

I tried most of the popular backup programs over the years but I found TODO backup to be the easiest and most reliable of them all and best of all it's free.

I remember having my computer crash when I was using a popular pay to use software.
I was freaked out about the prospect of having to reinstall everything but fortunately I had my back up. The only problem was a message came up that said this backup file is corrupted.

I lost tons of stuff, but I've gotten a lot more careful since then.

I never use backup compression software to save things like music and photos, it's much safer just to copy them to an external drive so that they can be restored without having to use any third-party software.

But I do have my operating system drive backed up multiple times, just in case.

Mike

 

[Hermitkrab]

Likewise, Mike. I've backed up files, not only to CD's, but also to an external drive I made using the hard drive from a damaged Toshiba I owned. It doesn't have the highest capacity, but I've still found it useful.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Good discussion, Guys!!
Glad to hear you are backing up to EASEus, Ed, as it's one of the 3 recommended Image File Backup programs we tell people to use here as above.

And I put a few more programs on my C: drive than Mike does, but his strategy to keep your C: drive backup image minimal is Spot On in my opinion! My current daily backup image file in Macrium is about 158GB. Little larger than Mike's; but I keep 10 days worth of Macrium Image file backups on 3 of my external hard drives. When a misbehaving update comes into my Computer and crashes my W10, say from Microsoft, about once every 2-3 months or so, I can rollback one day a time using my backed up Macrium backups; and I rarely have to go more than 2 or 3 days back to get one that works! And it takes me under 2 hours to get that Restore done and voila: I'm back up in running in no time!!

Cheers guys!
BBJ