There are a number of reasons why you should always have a fully backed up system image of your PC.
The foremost reason can be that you accidentally install some malware or program on your PC that corrupts the operating system to an extent that it is unusable. Your hard drive can also fail at any second without any indication of sorts, or there can be a totally random error as well. Thus, you must be backing up your PC on a regular basis, rather than relying on your luck.
Else you will not only lose important documents and photos, but you shall also have to install Windows once again on your PC. With the installation, you shall also have to take out the time to install all the apps all over again and also apply relevant settings.
Therefore, Microsoft has done the courtesy of providing an option inside Windows itself for creating a full backup of your PC.
Creating a full system image of your Windows 10 PC.
You can create the backup on a secondary drive or a network location or a Blank DVD, but it is best to do so on an external device, for instance, an external HDD. To do there are a couple of things you should have beforehand
- A Windows PC
- An external storage medium with enough available space
To know the space required, connect the external storage medium and the following wizard shall tell how much space is required.
Now let’s get to the main part:
- First and foremost, head over to Control Panel. You can search for it if you can’t find it.
- Now choose System and Security
- Click on Backup and Restore (On Windows 7)
- There will be a Create a System Image link in the left pane. Choose that.
- There would be an option saying, “Where do you want to save the backup?”. Select the option saying On a hard disk.
- Using the On a hard disk drop-down menu, select the storage medium on which you want to create the backup.
- Just choose the Start Backup Button in the menu that follows.
After this, you can either continue to work or leave your PC for a little bit, while it backs up. A full backup of your system would be created on the external storage medium. Even the stuff on the system reserved partition would be copied too.
If you happen to have Windows 10, then enjoy the benefit of Shadow Copying. This means that you can continue to work on files, while an image of your system is being created.
Once the backup is complete, you would be given an option to create a System Repair Disk. While it is recommended to do so, you can always perform recovery through a Bootable USB Flash Drive as well.
Now that all is complete, safely remove the external storage medium and store it in a safe place,