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Just curious, because its taking forever. Can I still play games while its running for instance?

So I started backing everything up last night, about 17 hours ago, and it hasn't really moved an inch since this morning. Is something wrong going on here? It should have been done by now. Should I just cancel it and start over?

Good day to everyone! I recently reinstaled windows on my pc and laptop, and i did a lot of reinstalations in the past on different pc's. Now, as many might know, reinstalling windows and instaling every program and files on your pc can be frustrating, and apart from that sometimes a clean instalation of windows may cause different problems for unknown reasons. So any time i reinstall windows, i usually remember the files and reinstall anything necesarry. Then, after reinstalation i use "restoro" to check the system stability and repair it if needed, as well as make a save point of the system after i instaled everything properly. However, i have a lot of software and files that i am using in everyday to day life. I have an external drive that i copy all the files that i need usually, but that doesnt mean that the reinstalation is not frustrating in some cases, especially if i have 2 pc's. Therefore i tried to find a solution for this problem. Now, i have 2 pc's, one of which is a custom build one in Ghost s1 case, and the other is a MSI prestige laptop. So if i to backup my pc's in any way, i have a few options avaliable: MSI laptop has a software called MSI system image recovery, which copies the files to an external usb or any drive, CD, or via internet. But what it actually makes is a recovery drive, which means it is essentially a boot usb drive with windows 10 on it. This provides a clean instalation of windows using a usb drive if the system fails in the future. The other options that are included in windows, and it goes for both of my pc's, are: 1) Archive system in windows settings that copies the personal files on to a drive 2) System recovery tool that is esentially the same thing as MSI system image recovery 3) Disk image, which is a tool that copies your entire drive, in order to recover it if something goes wrong Considering all these factors, the best option for me would be a creation of disk image after a clean windows reinstalation, so any time, if my system fails, i can get the drive and restore my system to a fresh start with everything needed saved. As if nothing happend. This is a convinient way of reinstaling windows, so you dont have to worry about reinstaling programs, software, drivers, etc. But! there are some dificulties with all these plans. The disk image cannot be backed up on a usb, i have no idea why, although in a lot of tutorials there is a way to back up on a usb. it didnt work for me. therefore i could have used an external program, but all of them are rubish considering you need to pay or they need to be installed at all times, etc. So the main questions are: 1) Is there a way to completely copy your pc? so that in case your system dies or malfunctions, you can reboot and restore your pc to its original state with clean windows, all your personal files, drivers, software etc, considering that your copy is in perfect condition 2) Using a old software "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" in the control panel, you can create a disk image. However, some tutorials show that it can be created on a usb with enough capacity using NTFS format. but it didnt work for me, it only shows that "cannot back up to this external drive" (there was enough capacity on a usb, and it was formated in NTFS, but no luck) is there a way? 3) If a usb doesnt work, i have an external 2TB hard drive, but i have 300GB of files there, will it be a good idea to back up there? will the disk be formated? 4) If the only way to create a system image is through a hard drive can i save 2 system images? one from my laptop, and one from my pc? If there are alternatives to reinstaling clean windows with drivers, files, softwares, tools etc, please let me know, all that i found was this information. Thank you very much for your patience, i appretiate your help.

I'm trying to use this software here at bootup so I can use the system image file I created through it. https://www.easeus.com/backup-software/tb-home.html

Hey I’m new here I purchased a new nvme drive for my laptop to replace the m.2 sata drive that came with the device I created a system image and a windows 10 installation usb and when trying to restore from system image it came up with this error: see image please help any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated the laptop model is asus veivo book flip 14 Tp410u if it helps 8th gen i5 with GeForce 930mx gpu there seems to be several variations of the exact spec of this model online thanks in advance

Fellow Techies, I hope all are doing well. Would anyone know why my boot times are longer when I have a system image on a seperate hdd? The boot time is fine if I delete the image and keep the drive empty or fill it with junk. It is always the system image that causes the longer boot times. Thank you in advance.

Hi everyone, I am planning on upgrading and clean installing Windows 10 from Windows 7 on my PC. I want to save all of my files/folders/data on my computer and will be using a WD My Passport Ultra for the job. My question is should I do a backup or a complete image? My thought was if I did a system image I have my Windows 7 files just in case something goes wrong and I know that EVERYTHING on my PC is on that image in case I forget something. Also is the windows backup/image utility good or should I use a third party program like Macrium Reflect? I don't want to screw anything up as I hear speculation on the Windows utility. I look forward to your responses!

Hi everyone, I recently created a system image of my PC on an external HDD. After much though I decided I want to delete the image because I can't physically access my files from the image, and want to do a regular backup. I can't seem to delete the image in control panel and it looks like the only option is to delete the WindowsImageBackup folder created on the external HDD. My question basically is if deleting that folder is safe? Thanks

hey guys, so I recently had an incident where I needed a full bootable copy of my boot drive to restore the computer to, but didn't have one. so I had to get someone to reinstall windows after reformatting the drive entirely, and it was a huge hassle. I just got an external backup drive and am trying to figure out if I need to clone the drive or simply create an image, and either way, what software I would need.

Whenever I try to a system image recovery the mouse and keyboard don't work. I can't continue to do it because for some reason they don't even power on. They're plugged into the USB 2 ports on the motherboard and I've tried every port on the motherboard and even on the case. They don't power up at all.There's a PS/2 port but I don't have an adapter or a PS/2 keyboard to try. (ASUS Maximus VII Formula motherboard)

Can I make a system image in Windows 7 and then use that image in Window 8.1?

I created a system image on an hdd (Win 7 is on a ssd) and now it takes at least 45 seconds to boot. If I take the drive out or remove the image and put other data on the hdd it boots in 15 seconds at most. Why would this happen? I check this with my older hdd (the older drive never gave me any trouble in the past) and it did the same thing.

So I am having a BSOD issue. Luckily, this is why I bought a 1tb external ssd, and created a system imgage. My question is, will i need to reinstall all of my steam games after the restore? If so, is there any way that i wouldnt have to? Thanks D34thL0cK

I am currently in the midst of trying to reinstall Windows 10 as part of fixing my computer (look here for why) but before doing that, I am backing up my files using Acronis True Image WD Edition onto my external hard drive. One concern I have though is that I've heard that this software backs up everything including all my Windows file so if I restored my computer, would it not bring any windows issue forward when I do so after I reinstalled Windows 10? I don't know, I am hoping anyone with experience in this field or with this software can enlighten me on this, thanks.

I recently decided to upgrade my storage space on my PC, but I’m worried with how things are setup that my system image will not work. I’d like some advice on two combinations. Oh, and I don’t know if it’s relevant, but the motherboard is being changed as well. My previous setup is one 120gb m.2 ssd as an OS drive, and two 1TB SSDs in Raid Zero format. I’m replacing it with two 2TB SSDs in Raid Zero as well, but cannot decide between getting a 250gig m.2 ssd to keep the original setup going or doing what I originally wanted and getting a NVME of the same size. (I have a bit of a bad tendency to put certain high storage items on my OS drive for convenience, hence the storage space amount for both options). I was also wanting to get a spare HDD added of like 3-4 gigs just to load video editing footage onto, but I was worried that inflict on my problem as well: I’m a bit of a stickler for time due to my job, so every second counts to me. My initial thought was to get the NVME boot drive since it’s even faster than a m2 since it uses a different format than SATA, but the issue in my head is I’m worried that changing the hard drive type (m2 to NVME) since also the NVMES are located in different slots than SSDs)) will invalidate my Windows system image that I have. As I mentioned previously, im also worried that adding an HDD will do the same. My concern is if I change the locations/types of my hard drives or if I add add new ones that my system image simply won’t work. At the end of the day, my system image is extremely important to me, but due to private circumstances this will be the last computer upgrade/chance I have for quite some time (meaning I want to be super satisfied with my purchase). Can anyone knowledgeable about backups/computer building give me some advice? Thank you, Galath

Hey, I was wondering if making a Windows System Image saves the contents inside my Linux partitions? I know it'll save the partition (space allocated) but I'm unsure if it saves whatever is in there. My Linux filesystem is Ext4 and Windows (10) is in NTFS. Disk Management on Windows also shows my Linux partitions as 100% free space, but I do have content inside them. Thanks in advance for the help!

So i have been taking regular system images and saving them to an external HDD. the question is, how similar to the original hardware can a system be to still work loading up the image? like if my mobo breaks, or my graphics card breaks, and i get a new one from a different manufacture, will i still be able to load up my saved system image? and how similar does it have to be? what if none of the new hardware is the same other than windows version? Thanks

So my pc has run into some issues and I lost the ability to boot into my computer, so I used my windows 10 usb to reinstall a fresh copy onto my ssd so that I could system image restore my old configuration. I went into settings and then restarted from the recovery advanced startup. From there I went to system image and then it says "to restore this computer, windows needs to format the drive that the windows recovery environment is currently running on. To continue with the restore, shut down this computer and boot if from a windows installation disc or a system repair disc and then try the restore again" so then I boot from my windows installation usb and then I get error 0x80042302. I read online and it says that it has to do with the Volume Shadow Copy service and the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider, so I went into the services.msc and made both them automatic and I started them. This didnt do anything to fix the issue, so then I ran sfc /scannow and that didnt do anything either. Lastly, I tried running Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth and Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth and Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and none of these did anything either. I have searched everywhere for a solution and cant seem to find it. I ran all cmd prompts as an admin and I have three drives in my pc, two 3tb hard drives and one ssd and an additional 4tb hard drive backup drive with my system image. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Computer has been down now for two days and really struggling. Thanks in advance!

Preface To start off what is a system image? Simply put a system image, from now on I will only refer to it as an image, is a snapshot of your system. By default it only includes the volumes/partitions needed for the operating system to run. Everyone who has ever had to do a clean install of Windows understands the pain of having to redownload and reinstall your programs, reconfigure your settings, have to redo any personalizations that you made to your OS. Hopefully by creating this guide, I will be able to save some headaches. Of course seeing as I like to get ahead of myself quite often, just point something out if it seems unclear. This is going to be beginner guide and as such will not delve into the more advanced options of creating a custom image. Keep in mind that there are a few requirements going into this. 1. You will need a spare USB drive that is at least 4GB in size or use a DVD. 2. You will be required to do a clean slate install first, if you have knowledge you can do this all in VMs though I will not cover them nor will I give support about VMs. 3. You will need a regular Windows 10 .iso image from Microsoft to do the initial clean install. 4. You will need a second PC to perform some steps unless you prepare ahead of time. Having more than one USB or DVD makes this much easier but is not required. Step One This step is going to be completely about preparation. 1. Go to this link and download the Windows 10 Media Creation tool. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/ 2. Run the tool and select 'Create installation media for another PC. 3. Choose the edition you are going to use. 4. Continue following the prompts given in the tool to make a bootable USB or DVD. Congratulations, you now have a bootbable media to continue on with the next step. Step Two Now comes the part where we make our first clean install of Windows. Follow my instructions exactly or you will go too far in the install process and have to start over. 1. Restart your PC and enter the boot menu. This is typically done by pressing a specific key during post, usually F2, F12, Delete, or Esc. 2. Select the USB or DVD you just made to boot from. 3. Your PC will now boot from the media, once prompt appears click 'Install Windows.' 4. You may need to enter your licence key again unless you have already activated Windows 10 on your PC. 5. Accept the licence terms. 6. Now you will want to make a custom install. I suggest deleting all existing partitions. Then select the unallocated space and press 'Next.' This will create the default partitions which is fine for our needs. 7. Here is where the files will be copied over and installed. Wait for it to finish and then it will reboot automatically. 8. Now that your system has rebooted, you will need to select a network or you can just skip this step. 9. **STOP** Do NOT click anything here. Instead press Ctrl+Shift+F3. This will boot you into the built-in administrator, also known as the default profile or audit mode. Step Three Once you are to the desktop, you will see a box that says System Preparation Tool. You can just click the X or cancel to close it as we will not be using this. Now you can customize Windows to your heart's content. Any application, personalization, or setting you select will carry over to your custom image. The only cannot be carried over are items pinned to the Taskbar and Start Menu as well as changes made to the Start Menu and Start Screen. As I've said, set everything up as you would normally. This includes Windows Update, drivers, applications, wallpapers, really everything. Keep in mind that Windows MUST be activated for personalizations to be made. Another important detail is that Edge does not work in Audit Mode, you will have to use Internet Explorer. Another thing to note that every user you create on your system once you are finished with this guide will have these personalizations so if you share your PC, I would suggest not going over the top with customizations. Step Four Here is where the fun starts, or at least the more advanced part that most users will not know much about. You will need to create what is known as an Answer File. Typically these files can get a bit complex since this guide technically is about an enterprise feature. However, I already have a simple file content for you prepared. 1. Make sure your USB or disc is still inserted and recognized by the system. 2. Open Notepad and copy paste this code into Notepad. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend"> <settings pass="specialize"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile> </component> </settings> <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:X:/sources/install.wim#Windows 10 Pro" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" /> </unattend> 3. If your OS is 64-bit, keep the highlighted "amd64" as it is. If your OS is 32-bit, change "amd64" to "x86". 4. In this part ---> wim:X:/sources/install.wim#Windows 10 Pro Change the location of the Windows 10 install media. In this example the media is on drive X: Depending on your edition of Windows 10, you will need to change "Pro" to the appropriate edition that your license is for. It will either be Home, Pro, Education, or Enterprise. 5. Save your .xml file like so on your spare drive (really any drive as long as it's not the C drive): Part Five One issue, or rather an inconvenience, this method has that your "last used folder" and "recent files" will carry over to every new profile that is created. To get around this we need to make a batch file. 1. Go to this exact location, you can just copy and paste into explorer, and create a batch file. You can name it something like RunOneTime.bat. %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup 2. The contents of the batch file should be this: echo Y | del %appdata%\microsoft\windows\recent\automaticdestinations\* del %0 3. This batch file is saved the default profile's automatic start folder and will be ran as soon as any new profiles are created. Part Six Now we will use the Sysprep tool built into Windows to get our image ready. 1. Make sure ALL open programs are closed. 2. Open a command prompt with admin privileges. 3. Enter the command to get to correct directory. cd sysprep 4. There is a specific Windows Media Player service that can cause the sysprep tool to fail. Let's stop that now. Enter the command: net stop wmpnetworksvc 5. Now we will enter the command to run the sysprep tool. sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:E:\customize.xml sysprep.exe is the tool. /generalize gets rid of hardware information associated with system. /oobe will make the Windows setup start the next you boot the PC to finish installation. /shutdown will make the PC shutdown after the tool is done running. You can also use /reboot and /quit (/quit won't shut the PC down and will keep you in Audit Mode). /unattend:E:customize.xml You will need to change "E" to the appropate driver letter of your USB (or other drive). If you named your answer file something other than customize.xml, you will also need to change that. 6. Let the tool run and don't open anything. 7. DO NOT BOOT THE PC INTO THE WINDOWS INSTALLER! Part Seven Now comes the step where we actually make the image of the system so that we can store it for later use. We will make use of a WinPE .iso image that comes preinstalled with Macrium Reflect, a free imaging software. This is also where your second PC will come in handy. 1. Download the .iso here https://onedrive.live.com/?id=475A0A48CA6D4035!1812&cid=475A0A48CA6D4035 2. Make a bootable USB using the download .iso with a program such as Rufus or Universal USB Installer. 3. Follow these images (note I didn't make these myself and will include the appropriate source). Open the spoilers. 4. Remove the USB from your PC. Part Eight Finally we are on the last step which also happens to be easiest. Turn on your PC and complete the Windows Installation. Once finished you will notice that everything you customized beforehand will still be there. Enjoy! Notes I'm a Network Administrator for a school and we have been working on deploying Windows 10 Education to every machine in the building. It kind of inspired me to make this guide, which also happens to be my first guide on LTT. Yay! Another thing to keep in mind is that I didn't do this on my personal machine as I was making the guide as that would have taken me a lot more time to create this as well as the fact that I need to it up and running 24/7. Due to this, I made this off of memory as well as using online guides as a reference as well as some of the methods such as the actual imaging. At work we use WDS for imaging directly to and from a server but I had to use something much simpler for this. Hence the Macrium. I also apologize for some of the bad formatting when it comes to the numbered steps, I looked worse before but this is what we are going with. Sources of info and pictures: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3020-windows-10-image-customize-audit-mode-sysprep.html http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2110-default-user-profile-customize-windows-10-a.html http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html

Hello. I am getting ready to upgrade from Windows 7 to 10 and I'm trying to prepare best I can. I've read that I should make a system image for recovery but i dont know how to do it. Guides I found online only tells me how to revert to Windows 7 when I have working Windows 10. I want to make sure I can fix my PC if something goes wrong during the installation and I can't boot into Windows. I have already copied my important files to an external hard drive, but I haven't created a system image. Could someone please explain how do I do this ? Also, I still have my Windows 7 DVD and my PC has one hard drive partitioned into two - one for Windows and another for files. I only copied files from the later one to an external hdd.

I'm cloning my Win7 laptop to a new one that came with Win8 preinstalled, I made a system image on the old one, wiped the new drive, and restored it from the image for driver testing, but I made another image after cleaning up drivers/files/other crap and repeated the process, and now I get this error after going through the entire restore process: (See attached) I've left the drive unformatted, NTFS, FAT32, tried to mimic the configuration of the old drive, but it does the same thing every time.

Hey, so I'm trying to make a system image, or a restore point for my Win7 machine, but because of all the games I have, the image is ~700Gb which is WAAAAYYYY too big, is there a better way of doing this? or will I have to delete all of my games? :mellow:

A while ago I wanted to try Ubuntu. I have Windows 8.1 and dualbooting is basically a no go for win8. I have done a lot of things, and eventually, my computer was running Ubuntu. However, I could not boot to Windows anymore. I've made a system image/backup of my Windows environment, which is on an external hard drive. Windows 8.1 makes its backup in a .vhdx file, which is a Virtual Hard Drive. I don't know what I did, but I somehow managed to completely wipe my internal hard drive. I reinstalled windows with the original disk of my manufacturer. That means I now have a clean OS with only a few necessary programs. I followed the steps in this tutorial to recover my previous system. Everything works fine, until just before step 14. When I click on Yes in the menu of step 13, the 'loading bar-screen' appears, but then shows an error: "Operating system must be the same." or something along those lines. But the operating systems are completely identical. It's both Windows 8.1 64-bit. Only my current OS has slightly newer updates. Could that be the problem? If so, 'the same OS' is very sensitive. I tried converting the .vhdx to .vhd to recover it with Acronis True Image. True Image wasn't able to recover. This is kind of the same as putting an .iso on a dvd, right? It shouldn't be so difficult to put a system image on a(n) (empty) hard drive? I hope you could help me further.

Hi, so long story short... A week or so ago my system received an Windows 8 error message saying that my hard drive was going to fail soon. I "backed up" my data onto an external hard drive. Last friday my hard drive refused to boot into windows and I assumed it had died. I bought a new hard drive and thought it would be easy to restore the operating system from my "back up". I looked on my external hard drive via another computer in windows and this is what I found- I found a file that was marked with the name of my pc and labelled as RESTORE. There is also a "Windows Backup Image". I went into the bios of my motherboard and could not boot directly into the restore via my external hard drive. I also had the Windows 8 installation CD but I think I threw out the product key. (I know, stupid me). After booting into the installation CD, I tried the install windows button, it asked for the product key and because I didn't have it, I retreated. I went into the "Repair your computer" function of the installation CD and then into Troubleshoot, I then clicked advanced options and neither system restore or system image recovery seemed to pick up the Windows Backup Image on my external hard drive, even after typing in the correct file path to find them. So basically, I need help to reinstall windows and if possible, keep my previous data PLEASE HELP :'(

Hi, so long story short... A week or so ago my system received an Windows 8 error message saying that my hard drive was going to fail soon. I "backed up" my data onto an external hard drive. Last friday my hard drive refused to boot into windows and I assumed it had died. I bought a new hard drive and thought it would be easy to restore the operating system from my "back up". I looked on my external hard drive via another computer in windows and this is what I found- I found a file that was marked with the name of my pc and labelled as RESTORE. There is also a "Windows Backup Image". I went into the bios of my motherboard and could not boot directly into the restore via my external hard drive. I also had the Windows 8 installation CD but I think I threw out the product key. (I know, stupid me). After booting into the installation CD, I tried the install windows button, it asked for the product key and because I didn't have it, I retreated. I went into the "Repair your computer" function of the installation CD and then into Troubleshoot, I then clicked advanced options and neither system restore or system image recovery seemed to pick up the Windows Backup Image on my external hard drive, even after typing in the correct file path to find them. So basically, I need help to reinstall windows and if possible, keep my previous data PLEASE HELP :'(