System Image Backup Question

[robert600]

I'm new to win10 ... but I'm in the process of upgrading several laptops from Win7 to Win10. I've done a few so far with no huge issues.

I would like to protect myself against some kind of catastrophic failure (hard drive crash, etc.). System Image Backup seems ideal except that when I read about actually using the image it says the following;

'To restore your computer from backup, connect the drive with the system image backup and reboot your computer with the Windows installation media. During the Windows Setup, click Next, then click the Repair your computer link in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Click on Troubleshoot, click Advanced options, and select System Image Recovery. Now select the target operating system you want to recover, click Next and Finish'.

This is problematic because of course .... I have no installation media (other than the Win7 disk). Is there a simple solution to this or .... is there a better way to do a full system backup of Win10?

 

[Jwpanz]

Go here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

This is a link to download the Windows 10 installation media. It says you need a license so you just need to use the one associated with the computer you are upgrading.

 

[Coup77]

Download the "Media creation tool" from Microsoft, run it and select "Create installation Media for Another PC"

..... You can burn it to a DVD or make a bootable USB stick.

This is an Install / Recovery image, which you can use to run a new install or use the recovery options on any PC.

 

[captaincharisma]

you can create a copy of windows 10 install using the media creation tool from Microsoft's website.

 

[robert600]

It says to have at least 5 GB of space ... so I guess to go the dvd route I would need a dual layer blank disk ... maybe usb stick would be a better option. I'll pick one up in the morning.

There's still a bit of confusion in my mind .... since i'm doing several laptops .... obviously i will need a different system image for each laptop .... but ... would I only need the one 'bootable installation usb stick ... and it would work for any of the laptops?

 

[captaincharisma]

It says to have at least 5 GB of space ... so I guess to go the dvd route I would need a dual layer blank disk ... maybe usb stick would be a better option. I'll pick one up in the morning.

There's still a bit of confusion in my mind .... since i'm doing several laptops .... obviously i will need a different system image for each laptop .... but ... would I only need the one 'bootable installation usb stick ... and it would work for any of the laptops?

did you try testing your backup yet? something tells me you don't need a windows 10 install disk but when you create the backup in windows it will already include that on the disk they write the backup to

 

[LukeFatwalker]

If you don't have access to the installation media, you could also try programs like Macrium Reflect or RollBack Rx; both of which are free and don't require installation media to create a backup.

 

[robert600]

did you try testing your backup yet? something tells me you don't need a windows 10 install disk but when you create the backup in windows it will already include that on the disk they write the backup to

Well ... this is what I was expecting it to be sure. Certainly if I were in charge of designing a backup system, the very 1st feature it would have is that it would self boot. But .... this is windows and they are often on a totally different wavelength from me! So ... it would be very nice if what you say is correct but if it is .... why the instruction I quoted in my 1st post. here it is again:
'To restore your computer from backup, connect the drive with the system image backup and reboot your computer with the Windows installation media'

This seems ridiculous considering the millions of folks they encouraged (begged) to upgrade from Win 7 or Win 8. They know full well that those of us who did that have no "Windows Installation Media".

 

[robert600]

If you don't have access to the installation media, you could also try programs like Macrium Reflect or RollBack Rx; both of which are free and don't require installation media to create a backup.

The problem isn't needing the installation media to create a backup - it's needing it to use the backup to restore the system (after say a hard drive crash).

I'm stupid enough to think of myself as a reasonably smart person lol. But rarely can I understand what windows wants you to do to use their add-on software. So ... I will look into those programs you suggest ... but if they don't self-boot ... what good are they if your hard drive has crashed?

My other thought is to get a hard drive and simply clone my c drive to it. But... I'm not sure even this would work because Win10 might not like the hardware change when the current c drive is replaced with the cloned drive. At least it would be easy to check!

 

[robert600]

1st …. Thanks to all for replying to my post – it is much appreciated even if I didn’t follow your advice lol … its always nice to hear other people’s thoughts on things.

After mulling things over I decided not to pursue Win 10s "System Image Backup". There are just too many unknown and unnecessarily complex issues (in my mind at least). On top of the ‘Windows installation media’ issue … in the case of a hard drive crash there remains the cryptic ‘connect the drive with the system image backup’…. I have no idea what that means – connect how exactly?. Do they seriously expect you to put a new hard drive in your drive bay, hook up the hard drive you have your image file in to a usb port, put your “Windows installation media” … in a different usb port, tell your bios to boot from the usb with the “Windows installation media” and then somehow access your image file and tell it to extract your system image on the new hard drive in the hard drive bay? Am I the only one who can see about a million things going wrong with this? And … how can someone actually verify that their backup would work? … I’m not a fan of putting blind faith in an image file that I can’t check.
OK … so here’s what I’ve done in case anyone has my same concerns. I’m not saying it is the best solution but it’s the only one I could get my head around and feel comfortable with at this time ( I like that it is instantly testable). Just to explain, I have 2 hard drives in my laptop, one small ssd for windows and my programs and another large one (in the optical bay) for my data etc. I’m not worried in the least about the data in the large drive. Dragging and dropping to a usb enclosure hard drive works fine to back that stuff up. What I am worried about is the ssd drive. I have countless hours invested in configuring win10, and in all my programs to behave and look exactly the way I want them to. In the case of a hard drive failure or corrupt windows files etc …. I do not want to do this again.

So … I downloaded and installed EaseUS Todo Backup Free 10.0 , turned off the computer, pulled out my optical bay hard drive (just because lol), plugged in a spare hard drive (via usb enclosure) that was slightly larger than the ssd and then turned on the computer and used EaseUS Todo Backup to clone the ssd to the drive in the usb enclosure. It took just over an hour. I then turned off the computer, took out the ssd drive, put in its place the drive I had just cloned, reinstalled the optical bay hard drive and started the laptop. Well … it thought about things for a while (4 or 5 mins with just a black screen … I thought I was screwed) but then it started fine. I checked out quite a few things … firefox, office, played an HEVC movie from a file on the optical drive disk, etc. etc. (I was reminded right away how spoiled I’ve become with the program load time of an SSD compared to a normal hard drive lol) and everything worked perfectly. So … I shut the laptop down, replaced the cloned drive with the ssd, turned it back on … win fired up without blinking (less than a minute) and everything is as it was before. I’m tucking that cloned drive away (carefully labeled as to exactly what it is) and feeling pretty good about having this laptop safely and verifiedly (this should be a word even if it isn’t) backed up. If my SSD dies, I can put the clone in its place, make a clone of it to a new SSD, install the SSD and be back to where I was in less than 2 hours. I guess if I make drastic changes to the SSD in the future (install and configure a bunch of new programs, seriously upgrade windows, etc.), I can always make a new copy of the clone.

The only problem I have now is that I have several laptops to back up. Anyone know where I can get a bunch of smallish hard drives cheap lol?

 

[lboquet]

(...) If my SSD dies, I can put the clone in its place, make a clone of it to a new SSD, install the SSD and be back to where I was in less than 2 hours.(...)

But you haven't tested that part yet, have you? So you can't be sure your system if totally working...yet.
see plenty of posts with Subject "Can't clone from HDD to SSD".
It's good to know your first stage does work (a bootable clone residing on the HDD), but I'd be curious to know if you can create a bootable system SSD by cloning that HDD, because I want to do something very similar but way more frequently:
Having an automatic, periodic (once a month) cloning of my OS/SSD onto my internal HDD.
In case of OS failure/corruption, I would boot from the HDD partition that holds my cloned SSD (tweaking boot order at start up).
Then, clone back that version onto the SSD (assuming the SSD did not physically fail) - this is the stage you haven't tested yet, I think.
I am still not sure this is feasible but would prefer it against methods requiring external drives being plugged in and hence user intervention (i.e. not fully automatic and running in the background when it needs to).

 

[robert600]

Can't argue with anything you say and it pays to be sure. But ... I don't have a 2nd SSD to test that with at the moment. I may get one reasonably soon to be the primary drive in another computer. I guess I could use it to test that last step before putting it in the other laptop. I'm optimistic the last step would be fine - it was cloned from an SSD after all so that might help smooth things. if I end up doing this, I will post and let you know.

What you're wanting to do sounds interesting but a bit beyond my reach. Personally (since i don't know a lot about it) I'd be a bit concerned about having 2 identical bootable versions hooked up at the same time - i don't give Windows much credit for not screwing things up. If it worked though - it would be great!

 

[robert600]

Sorry just to clarify my concern in the last paragraph above. When the cloning process is done - there are of course 2 identical bootable versions hooked up at the same time ... this is clearly no problem. So .... my concern is having them both connected when the computer boots up. I hear what you say about telling the bios what hard drive to boot from but .... well, this is windows lol.

 

[lboquet]

Personally (since i don't know a lot about it) I'd be a bit concerned about having 2 identical bootable versions hooked up at the same time - i don't give Windows much credit for not screwing things up. If it worked though - it would be great!

It does work with Vista : I have the same set-up on a desktop and on a Toshiba laptop (2 HDD for system, one cloning from the other every week). I have used it and it saved my butt many times but I had to select the clone for booting by changing boot order in BIOS. I am not sure how that would work with Windows 10, UEFI and SSD/HDD combo, that's why I am really interested by what you are doing. So yes, please do post when you successfully clone back onto the SSD and successfully boot from it. Then the security loop will be complete.

 

[robert600]

that's why I am really interested by what you are doing. So yes, please do post when you successfully clone back onto the SSD and successfully boot from it. Then the security loop will be complete.

Ok ... didn't take me long to run into boot problems with win10 ... tried to uninstall Avast Premium... uninstall got stuck part way through ... so downloaded their recommented file to clean up the mess ... ran it ... 1st thing it says is to run it and safe mode ... hit the restart in safe mode button in that application ... computer shut down and when it tried to restart ... screen saying problems running Win10 ... tried various repair options that that screen allow but none worked ... said it couldn't find restore points even though i know i made several ... I'm NOT IMPRESSED by this at all. So ... their way ... it seemed a reset was the only solution ... that would lose all my programs and all the hours spent installing and configuring everything just so.

So ... put in the cloned HDD I had cloned 10 days or so ago ... cloned from it to the SSD that would no longer boot ... put the SSD back in ... and it worked a treat!!! - back to the way everything was on that drive was 10 days ago (in less than 2 hours) ... very little had changed on that drive anyway. Since all my data etc are on a D: drive ... I didn't lose any stuff I've been working on lately.

Anyway ... long story short - cloning from the clonned HDD back to the SSD works great ... saved my butt big time! I'm wondering now how to get rid of Avast - not looking forward to going through that again!