How to create and restore an image backup in Windows 10

How do you recover from a dead internal hard drive or SSD? Or if Windows becomes so messed up it's useless or even unbootable?

You can always reinstall Windows from scratch. But after that you must reinstall all of your programs, and then reconfigure everything.

But if you have a relatively recent image backup handy, you can recover Windows, your programs, and your configurations with a few minutes’ work. 

The difference between file and image backups

An image backup copies everything on your drive, including partitions and the boot sector. It’s the only way to back up your Windows installation properly, with all of your programs and settings. Don’t confuse this with a file backup, which only copies your data files (documents, photos, spreadsheets, and so on).

Of the two, the file backup is by far the most important. You can always reinstall Windows and your applications, but you can’t reinstall your business records or your family photos. You should back up data files daily. If you’re not regularly backing them up, see my 3 easy steps for getting this going.

By comparison, an image backup simply saves you the major hassle of reinstalling everything. You only really need to back it up two to four times a year.

Creating your image backup

Start by plugging in your external hard drive. Make sure Windows can access it.

For some strange reason, Microsoft created a perfectly good image backup tool, then hid it. Here’s how you get to the image backup program:

1.   Right-click the Start button and select Control Panel.

2.   When the Control Panel window is up, select the Search field in the upper-right corner and type file history.

3.   Click the title File History.

4.   Click System Image Backup in the lower-left corner.

Congratulations. You found the secret image backup tool.

Click Create a system image in the left panel. This brings up a wizard for setting up the backup. On the first page, tell the wizard you want the backup on your plugged-in external drive.

On the wizard’s second page, select the partitions you want in this image backup. Or don’t; the default will probably be right.

On the Wizard’s next and final page, check to make sure the settings are right, then click Start backup.

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