The best plans go awry. You rest on Thursday before a big meeting on Friday. Maybe you’re at a local cafe preparing for a big test the next day. Suddenly, the free music you downloaded or your browsing habits come back to haunt you. There’s a virus you can’t get out of. What can you do? Everyone’s advice is to install a fresh version of Windows, but you’ll have to spend the whole night getting everything set up just the way you want it. It doesn’t have to be a position either, as long as you prepare for the worst early on. You can have a full backup of your Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 PC with all your apps, games, files and settings stored in it.
Most assume you need a special piece of software to take a full backup of your Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 PC. While there are software packages you can purchase to create full backups, they are not entirely necessary. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 support creating System Images. System Images are a complete snapshot of your computer from a specific time. A System Image contains everything you need to get started quickly. We’re talking, your operating system, programs, applications, photos, documents and more. In case something goes wrong, simply restore your computer from that System Image.
Here is how to take a full backup of your Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 PC.
How to Make a Full Backup of Your Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 PC: Required Materials
External storage is the first thing you will need to take a full backup of your PC. Just any type of external storage won’t work either.
What you want is a USB storage device with enough room for whatever you want to put on it. A good rule of thumb is to buy a hard drive or flash drive with the same amount of storage as your device. That way you can fit everything in the System Image. Unless you have a low-end PC with only a small amount of storage, you may need a USB hard drive.
You can find out how much space you have on your computer in the This PC area or by looking at the materials that came with your computer.
Creating a Fullback of Your Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 PC
Start by connecting the external storage you have directly to your computer. If your hard drive needs to be formatted, go ahead and do so now by opening it from the This PC area. Remember that formatting a drive erases everything on it. Only format it if you don’t intend to keep whatever is already on it.
On your Desktop, right-click the Windows button on your Taskbar for a pop-up menu.
Choose from the drop-down menu.
Now tap or click the drop-down menu. Choose .
choose
Welcome to the File History utility. This tool allows you to create System Images that you can later use to restore your PC. Tap or click in the lower left corner of the File History area.
Tap or click the icon in the upper left corner of the backup utility.
The tool should open immediately and start looking for the external drive you just connected to your computer. If you have more than one drive installed, you need to select it. To be clear, the tool also lets you create system images on disks or a network drive, but an external drive is a more versatile storage method than these. It is best to avoid optical storage whenever possible.
choose
Your C Drive should be preselected for backup. Check or uncheck the drives you want to add or remove from your System Image. Click .
Click now
This process can take a long time, but it depends on how much stuff you need to back up and how fast your USB storage is. Remember to keep your backups in a very, very safe place. The System Image you create will not be encrypted. This means anyone can use it to restore your entire Windows installation and all your files.
Restore Full Backup of Your Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 PC
If something goes wrong with your PC, you need to mount the hard drive with the System Image you created and boot from it. How you boot a PC from an external drive is different for some machines but usually involves pressing the F10 key on your keyboard while your PC is starting up.
If you plan to rely on System Images in an emergency, make it a habit to make a full backup of your Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 PC.
