Hi Britec09, thank you for making such a useful and straightforward video. I used one external hard drive for a system image following your video last year, and I used another external hard drive to make regular file history. I got a new computer this year, an a new external hard drive. I wondered if I can use the new external hard drive to backup my new computer with both method : system image(I don't backup this way often), and also file history(backup this way the more often)? Thank you in advance!
Be careful not to setup any scheduled task starting from a non system drive, or the tool will include said drive in the system image, without the ability to exclude it. It is also worth noting that the image relies on vhd files, so it's possible to peek inside a backup and extract individual files if needed. Last but not least restore points are included in the image as well and could be used as a restore option, although the restore disk option to do so will fail if the underlying system image folder has been renamed.
I remember awhile back when Microsoft said one of the Windows 10 feature updates would deprecate this feature. I'm glad they changed their mind, although alternate solutions are good to have as well.
Hi Brian. This is (as are others of yours) a very useful video. I whether you had ever consisdered creating a text file with the steps of the process. I realise that this could be a non-trivial task, but could be a great "accessory" to the video.
Cool video and nicely explained.RESPECT. It was 112 gb on my system but i gues it depends on what programs you have installed on your pc.Thank you for the video
I tried this years back and had a real Night mare of a time trying to put the stuff Back in place. I moved on to system Images made by any number of other Softwares that offer a Bootable form of Recovery Environment.
Great video! Backup power is crucial, especially when you're out camping or spending quality time with family. I highly recommend the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series. With its massive capacity, fast recharging, and durable design, it's the perfect companion for outdoor enthusiasts like us. Stay powered up and enjoy your adventures!
Fantastic info brian very,helpfull indeed,as it happens,this has worked out .exellent timing,as im installing win 11 on my good freinds win 10 laptop.spot on boss thanku loads
thank you. i did creat backup system image. but why when i do restore via setting - recovery - restart - troubleshoot system image said error xxx911. i try system restore said file not found. i upgrade windows 11 home to pro buy at microsoft store 99 dollar. i creat backup system image, worry my loptop cant start and automatice go to troubleshoot to reapir it. but system restore or restore image not work ( can creat backup system image but cant restore system image )
Yeah. That never worked for me. When I load it up I get a white screen that says: Control Panel Home(Link back to it) and on the left of middle it says: Back up or restore your files. The rest is just white. lol Been like that since I upgraded 7 to 10 long time ago. Which is another reason I really need to figure out how to save just my apps, documents and settings, so I can do a full reformat of the system. Great video as always.
Two things: 1) Why would anyone ever want to use Category view when the option is simply listed in the Large or Small Icon view? Getting away from Category is the first thing I do on any machine I have to go into Control Panel on. 2) *ROFLMBO* in Windows 11, it still says backing up Windows 7. I guess spell checking / verification isn't a high priority mr vaccinations tech company.
Hey there! I'm not an expert at all in this kind of stuff. But I have a question regarding this. I will be installing Linux OS(for a project). I want to back up all my Windows 11 apps, files, and everything else in case they get deleted during the Linux Installation. Can you confirm, does doing this method in this video really back everything up? For example, if I have a videogame installed on Windows right now, it will be backed up so if anything happens, I can restore everything and the game will be there perfectly fine? Also another question, my External Hard Drive is like 1TB. The external hard drive currently is at like 200GB out of those 1TB. My Windows drive right now has around 400 GB out of 500GB full. How do I back up those 400GB from Windows drive to External Hard Drive without affecting the 200GB that is already in there currently?
Does not work smoothly at all for me, setting up a new backup on a network drive location does not work, starting one up, it never asks me which drives I want to include in the backup, it just goes straight to where do I want to put the backup, then windows keeps asking for network credentials. I have full access to the network and drives through explorer without credentials so I don't understand what is going on.
HI Brian. This may be a how long is piece of string question but if my existing drive is 1TB with on the windows 11 system and two games (128 GB x2) what size does the back drive have to be? My external backup drive is 58 GB but the warning says there is not enough space. Thank you for this video and sharing your expertise.
I use this all the time, and it's fantastic, although the EFI partition on the system drive must have at least 50MB of free space or in my experience anyways, it won't work. I made said partition to 1GB size which, yesa, is overkill, but it works. I've noticed however that when I do a fresh install to a completely blank HDD said partition is only 50MB of which some is used, and so the utility doesn't work.
I have a question. My system drive has multiple partitions. If I restore it to a drive where the partitions have not been separated will it restore partitions?
Can we really use and trust this windows image program, that comes with windows 11. Cause I heard that event microsoft says dont use it, use a third party program for image backup. Many say it makes problems. In my case I tested it already and I had no problems at all with it. Could make image backup and restore it and pc works after that fine. So why say other, we dont should use it, when it works? I also use other backup programs as acronis true image or aomei backupper, but if that works, we dont need another program.
I am sending my laptop in for repair, and I have been warned that the repairer will most likely wipe my laptop. Could I use this tool to make an image of my system on a 2nd drive, remove that drive before I send it off and use it to restore my data back onto the original drive if the repairer does decide to wipe it?
Lets just say i created a Win 11 system image backup and decided to install windows 10 on my pc. If later i decided to go back to win 11 from 10 could i use this system image backup to do so.
Brian is this just another option for backing up your system as I use AOMEI Backupper onto an external drive and I am wondering is this method as good as the AOMEI (or other software) for backing up. It would be good to know too how one restores from whatever back source is used.
If i have multiple partitions on the same drive and if i choose to backup just the C:\ partition with my system on it, when i will restore my C:\ partition the other partitions will be deleted from the drive or the other partitions from the drive wouldn' be erased and i will still have all my files from those partitions untouched? Thanks!
On my PC, the Win7 Backup and Restore feature aborts with error 0x80080005. None of the suggested repairs work. How can I get a clean version for downloading to my PC??
Is there any particular reason why when I do it the backup size is not available? That is very frustrating. To spend hours create a system image only for there to be not enough space on the external hard drive. I have a lot of storage (in this case) so I am not worried about that. But my situation may not always be the same.
My backup failed even though I have a hard drive (HDD) with more than 2TB. My system is installed in a 500GB drive (an m.2 nvme ssd), which only has used 330GB. So I don't understand why it failed. Let me add that my HDD is a 3TB one with 2TB free space, and it contains a bunch of other files. Does it has to be a totally clean HDD for the backup image to work? Btw, I am running Windows 11 Pro. Thanks. 🤔
I think so. I tried to save the system image on a FAT external drive and Windows didn't allowed me to. It specifically said that it had to be an NTFS drive, so I formatted the drive converting it to NTFS and then the back up worked fine.
Wasnt that method adviced for win7/8 backups only? I recall that long ago it was the advice (by MS and others) not to use it for win 10 due to reliability issues. Anyway, i switched to aomei pro then, any other solution should be good as well. Prefer to make backups by booting from usb. Never failed.
@@weseehowcommiegoogleis3770 i started with c64, amiga and atari st. That doesnt count as i built my own pc to play doom. Had to switch the expensive vesa local bus card vs a isa tseng et4000😂😅 And i exploded my first monitor (no joke, it burned) when installing SLS linux on 15 floppies and misfigured the monitor timings. Good old times? Honestly no, so much better nowadays.👍😆
Acronis true image has become rather bloated. It's not just a backup software anymore. It's an antivirus anti-ransomware backup program and takes a lot of system resources
If I do an image backup of my C: and D: drives, which is partitioned on a Raid-1 setup, can I restore this backup onto a single SSD that is partitioned the same way for C: and D:, but without the Raid-1?
@@Britec09 No worries. I saw your pool side short film. Nice. BTW, my raid drive crashed, so I ended up rebuilding a single drive with most of my data. No more Raid for me, never again. Enjoy the sun and surf, and keep up the good videos.
It might take hours if you are backing up 5400 RPM drive partitions with a lot of data or the destination drive is relatively full. In the former case, keeping your data on a separate partition from the system helps. In the latter case, it seems like the backup needs to pare down data on the destination drive, and that can take some time. This backup takes about 5 min on my Vista workstation with 150 GB system partition on SSD and large-fast destination drive. It's worked well for more than 10 years. TBH, I have had problems on a company machine that was upgraded from 7 to 10. System Image stopped working on 21H1.
Outdated. CD? I hawe beckup image but can't make a bootable USB to restore it. The only option I see is to make clean instalation of windows and boot into advanced boot. That a waste of time.
@@Britec09 i know but i always say why waste and spend money on something u can have for free its like if someone wanted to give you lambo for free u reject it and say ur gonna buy ur own lul
Please leave a comment and like the video, thanks. 👍
make a video on how to make iso with pre_installed softwares.
If the source drive is full or nearly it gives an error and will stop
Hi Britec09, thank you for making such a useful and straightforward video. I used one external hard drive for a system image following your video last year, and I used another external hard drive to make regular file history. I got a new computer this year, an a new external hard drive. I wondered if I can use the new external hard drive to backup my new computer with both method : system image(I don't backup this way often), and also file history(backup this way the more often)? Thank you in advance!
Thanks Brian. Now, perhaps make a part 2 showing how to restore a computer using the backed-up system image?
What he said ^^
Great suggestion!
@@Britec09 is there any new video about how to use the image backup? Thanks
To whoever is reading this!
Britec made a part 2! It's called How to Restore Windows 11" and it was posted October 15th, 2022
@@justyce_yt thy :)
Be careful not to setup any scheduled task starting from a non system drive, or the tool will include said drive in the system image, without the ability to exclude it.
It is also worth noting that the image relies on vhd files, so it's possible to peek inside a backup and extract individual files if needed.
Last but not least restore points are included in the image as well and could be used as a restore option, although the restore disk option to do so will fail if the underlying system image folder has been renamed.
I remember awhile back when Microsoft said one of the Windows 10 feature updates would deprecate this feature. I'm glad they changed their mind, although alternate solutions are good to have as well.
I believe it is still deprecated but not yet dropped. MS has recommended that you find an external solution for the long term.
They don’t want you using backups they want onedrive so they can analyze your data and sell it.
Hi Brian. This is (as are others of yours) a very useful video. I whether you had ever consisdered creating a text file with the steps of the process. I realise that this could be a non-trivial task, but could be a great "accessory" to the video.
I'll see what I can do Paul
I used your code to purchase Microsoft Office 2016- thanks!
Simple & reliable.
I do daily images, one on this method and another on Macrium.
Macrium reflect is an awesome backup software, and it's free!
Cool video and nicely explained.RESPECT. It was 112 gb on my system but i gues it depends on what programs you have installed on your pc.Thank you for the video
Great explanation. Thanks. Mutch appreciated
Thank you very much...I just noticed you're not Anthony Hopkins but you sound just like him ;)
You got it. Thanks again Brian
Backup is good. Testing your restore is better.
Always best to verify your backups. It takes longer but worth doing
Nice and simple, thank you. Do you need a repair disk in order to restore the system image?
Thank you!
Just one question: ¿does the target disk must be empty for this technique?
hello, I'm from Indonesia. I like your tutorial, it's very helpful
Thanks, Jono I appreciate it
I tried this years back and had a real Night mare of a time trying to put the stuff Back in place.
I moved on to system Images made by any number of other Softwares that offer a Bootable form of Recovery Environment.
Great video! Backup power is crucial, especially when you're out camping or spending quality time with family. I highly recommend the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series. With its massive capacity, fast recharging, and durable design, it's the perfect companion for outdoor enthusiasts like us. Stay powered up and enjoy your adventures!
Always a good thing to do. Store the backup on a NAS or USB drive
NAS is a must have bit of kit
What is the minimum drive space required to create this backup?
THANKS! Worked like a charm...I used to know how but its been so long, which is why it needed done lol. I learned the hard way last time!
Great video! Did what you showed and it worked.... but now what? How do I actually get to the files that were "backed up"?
Fantastic info brian very,helpfull indeed,as it happens,this has worked out .exellent timing,as im installing win 11 on my good freinds win 10 laptop.spot on boss thanku loads
Thanks Stephen, I appreciate it
Great optional tool to acronis,easier to use,thanks
Glad I could help
Very nice method. But kindly, please show the method of windows image backup folder deleting process. Thanks
Whenever you make a backup video please ensure to let us know how to restore that backup in the same video at the end
I will make a follow up video on how to restore from the backup. Thank you
thank you. i did creat backup system image. but why when i do restore via setting - recovery - restart - troubleshoot system image said error xxx911. i try system restore said file not found. i upgrade windows 11 home to pro buy at microsoft store 99 dollar. i creat backup system image, worry my loptop cant start and automatice go to troubleshoot to reapir it. but system restore or restore image not work ( can creat backup system image but cant restore system image )
Yeah. That never worked for me. When I load it up I get a white screen that says:
Control Panel Home(Link back to it) and on the left of middle it says:
Back up or restore your files.
The rest is just white. lol Been like that since I upgraded 7 to 10 long time ago. Which is another reason I really need to figure out how to save just my apps, documents and settings, so I can do a full reformat of the system. Great video as always.
Very strange
@@Britec09 Maybe I had something disabled in Win7 and it screwd that all up. No idea though. I mean this has been bolloxed for a long time now.
Two things:
1) Why would anyone ever want to use Category view when the option is simply listed in the Large or Small Icon view? Getting away from Category is the first thing I do on any machine I have to go into Control Panel on.
2) *ROFLMBO* in Windows 11, it still says backing up Windows 7. I guess spell checking / verification isn't a high priority mr vaccinations tech company.
That is because Windows 11 is NOT new and is a Frankenstein of Windows 7, 8/8.1 and Windows 10
@@Britec09correct, also vista. They’re all just Windows 6.
THANK YOU BEN!
Hey there! I'm not an expert at all in this kind of stuff. But I have a question regarding this.
I will be installing Linux OS(for a project). I want to back up all my Windows 11 apps, files, and everything else in case they get deleted during the Linux Installation. Can you confirm, does doing this method in this video really back everything up? For example, if I have a videogame installed on Windows right now, it will be backed up so if anything happens, I can restore everything and the game will be there perfectly fine?
Also another question, my External Hard Drive is like 1TB.
The external hard drive currently is at like 200GB out of those 1TB.
My Windows drive right now has around 400 GB out of 500GB full.
How do I back up those 400GB from Windows drive to External Hard Drive without affecting the 200GB that is already in there currently?
Can you use a partition like drive D: that you make from drive C: or does it have to be another physical drive?
This is invaluable information. It can make life really convenient.
You're welcome
Does not work smoothly at all for me, setting up a new backup on a network drive location does not work, starting one up, it never asks me which drives I want to include in the backup, it just goes straight to where do I want to put the backup, then windows keeps asking for network credentials. I have full access to the network and drives through explorer without credentials so I don't understand what is going on.
I'm having issues when trying to restore. I keep getting a "Windows cannot find a system image on this computer".
Any help?
Thanks very much
HI Brian. This may be a how long is piece of string question but if my existing drive is 1TB with on the windows 11 system and two games (128 GB x2) what size does the back drive have to be? My external backup drive is 58 GB but the warning says there is not enough space. Thank you for this video and sharing your expertise.
I use this all the time, and it's fantastic, although the EFI partition on the system drive must have at least 50MB of free space or in my experience anyways, it won't work. I made said partition to 1GB size which, yesa, is overkill, but it works. I've noticed however that when I do a fresh install to a completely blank HDD said partition is only 50MB of which some is used, and so the utility doesn't work.
I have a question. My system drive has multiple partitions. If I restore it to a drive where the partitions have not been separated will it restore partitions?
If you want to format, Does this image include drivers as well?
This image backup has got me out of trouble a few times! I
That's why it's important to back up your computer
How to use the image backup?
Can we really use and trust this windows image program, that comes with windows 11. Cause I heard that event microsoft says dont use it, use a third party program for image backup. Many say it makes problems.
In my case I tested it already and I had no problems at all with it. Could make image backup and restore it and pc works after that fine.
So why say other, we dont should use it, when it works?
I also use other backup programs as acronis true image or aomei backupper, but if that works, we dont need another program.
I am sending my laptop in for repair, and I have been warned that the repairer will most likely wipe my laptop.
Could I use this tool to make an image of my system on a 2nd drive, remove that drive before I send it off and use it to restore my data back onto the original drive if the repairer does decide to wipe it?
Lets just say i created a Win 11 system image backup and decided to install windows 10 on my pc. If later i decided to go back to win 11 from 10 could i use this system image backup to do so.
Brian is this just another option for backing up your system as I use AOMEI Backupper onto an external drive and I am wondering is this method as good as the AOMEI (or other software) for backing up. It would be good to know too how one restores from whatever back source is used.
The other Softwares offer backup of Files, Partitions or Drives. I even back up Linux with some of them
Whatever works for you John. Use it as long as you back up at sort of matters
If i have multiple partitions on the same drive and if i choose to backup just the C:\ partition with my system on it, when i will restore my C:\ partition the other partitions will be deleted from the drive or the other partitions from the drive wouldn' be erased and i will still have all my files from those partitions untouched? Thanks!
It don't let me save on my hard drive where I have extra 500gb space but saying it is not formated in NTFS because my HD is on FAT32
On my PC, the Win7 Backup and Restore feature aborts with error 0x80080005. None of the suggested repairs work. How can I get a clean version for downloading to my PC??
Is there any particular reason why when I do it the backup size is not available? That is very frustrating. To spend hours create a system image only for there to be not enough space on the external hard drive. I have a lot of storage (in this case) so I am not worried about that. But my situation may not always be the same.
Hi mate, I've tried to backup various times to 2 diffrent drives and the both get stuck on 97% any ideas?
How much time it takes to create system image backup ? In your case , the size was 498, can you confirm how much time it took ??
Doesn’t matter. Leave it overnight
My backup is 700GB it makes a part of the system on another hd? (400gb() can you tel me what this is?
Why does windows show 0 bytes next to the folders?
Can you upload system image files to any cloud providers? In case the hard drive that contains the system image corrupts
great content....!😀
Thanks 😀
My backup failed even though I have a hard drive (HDD) with more than 2TB. My system is installed in a 500GB drive (an m.2 nvme ssd), which only has used 330GB. So I don't understand why it failed. Let me add that my HDD is a 3TB one with 2TB free space, and it contains a bunch of other files. Does it has to be a totally clean HDD for the backup image to work? Btw, I am running Windows 11 Pro. Thanks. 🤔
do i need to create a recovery drive and a recovery image on disk or recovery image works?
Got a blu-ray drive in my pc could do via blu-ray copies I mean my windows installation is like 85gb not that much like 2 double layer Blu-ray Disc
What if I create a backup to an external drive like a pendrive,do I have to convert my pendrive to NTFS to create a system image.pls reply
I think so. I tried to save the system image on a FAT external drive and Windows didn't allowed me to. It specifically said that it had to be an NTFS drive, so I formatted the drive converting it to NTFS and then the back up worked fine.
Why list Backup on Windows 11 and show backup on Windows 7?
Wasnt that method adviced for win7/8 backups only? I recall that long ago it was the advice (by MS and others) not to use it for win 10 due to reliability issues. Anyway, i switched to aomei pro then, any other solution should be good as well. Prefer to make backups by booting from usb. Never failed.
Been around since windows 7
@@Britec09 Been around since 386DX40 and msdos 5😀, can you beat that?😂
@@sheldonkupa9120 I remember Dos games on 1.44 Flops. Wifes favorite was Redneck Rampage.
@@weseehowcommiegoogleis3770 i started with c64, amiga and atari st. That doesnt count as i built my own pc to play doom. Had to switch the expensive vesa local bus card vs a isa tseng et4000😂😅 And i exploded my first monitor (no joke, it burned) when installing SLS linux on 15 floppies and misfigured the monitor timings. Good old times? Honestly no, so much better nowadays.👍😆
Better to spend a little money & purchase some modern, user-friendly backup software. There are even some pretty good free ones out there.
Thanx for the video but I think I'll stick to Acronis True Image
Acronis true image has become rather bloated. It's not just a backup software anymore. It's an antivirus anti-ransomware backup program and takes a lot of system resources
If I do an image backup of my C: and D: drives, which is partitioned on a Raid-1 setup, can I restore this backup onto a single SSD that is partitioned the same way for C: and D:, but without the Raid-1?
Backing up at raid is a little bit more involved. I will make a video on it when I get back home from my holiday
@@Britec09 No worries. I saw your pool side short film. Nice. BTW, my raid drive crashed, so I ended up rebuilding a single drive with most of my data. No more Raid for me, never again. Enjoy the sun and surf, and keep up the good videos.
cab I also do it to a ssd I have a 4tb hard drive I make and iso on it can I restore it to a 500 gig ssd
hello,this one can backup software together!thanks
can i install this iso on virtual machine???
In the past, this took hours. I wonder if it's faster w. Windows 11. Of course, it depends upon how much drive (GB) is imagined. Ciao.
did not take that long
@@Britec09 Great. I'll give it a shot. It's been months since I imagined my main drive.
It might take hours if you are backing up 5400 RPM drive partitions with a lot of data or the destination drive is relatively full. In the former case, keeping your data on a separate partition from the system helps. In the latter case, it seems like the backup needs to pare down data on the destination drive, and that can take some time.
This backup takes about 5 min on my Vista workstation with 150 GB system partition on SSD and large-fast destination drive. It's worked well for more than 10 years.
TBH, I have had problems on a company machine that was upgraded from 7 to 10. System Image stopped working on 21H1.
But you didn't show how to use it.
That would be restoring from a image, another video
Could you please do a complete windows 11 to 10 downgrade with backup tutorial please?
Cool!
Thanks
can I boot into it?
Outdated. CD? I hawe beckup image but can't make a bootable USB to restore it. The only option I see is to make clean instalation of windows and boot into advanced boot. That a waste of time.
you can take an installations usb stick from windows 10 or 11 to restore your image.
why does it say windows 7? lol my laptop has windows 7 i was like wtf MS has access to my laptop too lol
👍
👍
There are quite a few things you say to do without saying how to do them. You're assuming a level of knowledge that many people may not have.
hi
Hi
god
Omg please use dark mode lol
0:36 or just activate it for free
That would be piracy
@@Britec09 i know but i always say why waste and spend money on something u can have for free its like if someone wanted to give you lambo for free u reject it and say ur gonna buy ur own lul
rescuezilla-for-windows
Yeah, that is pretty good