1 2 3 4 5
articles per Page.

Creating a backup image.

If your computer is running just how you like it, creating a backup image now is a great idea. If something bad should happen, a hardware failure or a nasty virus causes problems. The backup image will help you get the system back up and working as it did at that point.

Obviously there is more too it when it comes to restoring the image but if you have a backup image you are already ahead of the game.

What you will need in order to do a backup is firstly a computer running Windows 8,8.1 or 10 and a second hard drive. It can be a second internal or an externally connected USB hard drive, it doesn't matter.
In this example I am running Windows 10, but the process is the same for Windows 8 and 8.1. Firstly connect the second hard drive if it isnt connected yet and continue below.

Press and hold the Windows key and press the X key then release both.
The menu above will then appear.

Click on the 'Control Panel' shown below.


A new window will open, the Control Panel.
If it looks the same as above, click on Category in the top right corner and change it to 'Small icons', shown below.


Next click on 'File History'.


Then click on 'System Image Backup' in the bottom left corner.


Now click on 'Create a system image' in the new Window that appears.


Windows will now take a short time (a few minutes) to scan the computer for additional hard drives to backup onto.


In this example Windows has found my external hard drive as drive E:, your backup drive may have a different drive letter, check to make sure its found the right drive and when you're happy click 'Next'.


Windows will now show which drive partitions have been found and can be backed up. There is likely to be 2 or more drives, the System reserve and the C: drive. These drives must be backed up as they are the system drives. Additional drives maybe found and its up to you if you want to back them up as well.

My advice is, if you have space to do a full backup, do it all. If not the system reserve and C are the important ones.
Click 'Start Backup' when youre ready.

Its going to take a while to complete (approximately an hour depending size of drives and spec of computer).
Windows will give updates on screen as to what it's backing up.


Once its completed Windows will give you the option of creating a repair disk. If you have a spare burnable CD around create one, if not just click 'No'.


That's it, you now have a system backup image. An insurance that if the worst should happen you can get your computer back up and running again.

If the worst does happen and you have to take it to an engineer for repair, you can always let them know you have an image backup to restore the system to when everything was running just how you wanted it.

Its always worth noting, that there's no limit to how many backup images you make, but you will have to rename the backup folder from 'WindowsImageBackup' to something more meaning full for yourself, before doing a second backup to the same drive.