In Windows 8.1 (at least in the currently officially available distribution of Windows 8.1 Preview), Microsoft decided to abandon the graphical Windows 7 backup tool left over from the days of Windows 7.

In the recently leaked Windows 8.1 RTM network, a graphical wizard for creating a system image still appeared. Details at the end of the article.

Naturally, this does not mean that in Windows 8.1 it is impossible to create a system image backup using standard tools (do not confuse system image backup and user data backup technology), it's just that now this functionality has been transferred to a separate Wbadmin command line utility and is not available from GUI. In this article, we will talk about the features of using the Wbadmin utility to create a backup copy of a Windows 8.1 image and then restore the system from this image.

Backing up the Windows 8.1 image

The operating system image takes up a lot of disk space, so to perform the operation, you must have enough free space (no less than the size of the occupied space on the system disk) on some external drive (for example, with a USB connection) or a network directory.

- quiet– when executing the command, do not ask the user for confirmation

In the event that it is necessary to include several disk partitions in the backup (for example, C:\, E:\ and F:\), the command will look like this:

WbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:H: -include:C:,E:,F: -allCritical –quiet

If you want to write the backup to a shared network folder:

WbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:\\srv-bak1\BackupFolder -user:username -password:userPassword -include:C: -allCritical -quiet

Note: If authorization is required to access the network folder, enter the user name and password

Depending on the number of disks, the degree of their fullness and the performance of the computer, the process of creating a system image can take several hours (in this example, with 40 GB of information on the C:\ drive, the system backup took about 2 hours).

If, after the backup has been created, you open the drive (or network directory) to which it was written in Explorer, you can find the WindowsImageBackup directory familiar from the days of Windows 7 (Backup and Restore function) with several .xml and .vhdx files in it. These are files with system partition images and configuration information.

How to restore Windows 8.1 from an image

Attention: When restoring from a backup, all data on the partition being restored will be deleted and replaced with the data contained in the backup.

System Image Backup in Windows 8.1

Update from 09/06/2013.After getting acquainted with the recently "leaked" Windows 8.1 RTM (build 9471), we managed to find out that Microsoft decided to return the graphical interface for managing the creation of a backup copy of the entire contents of the computer. This function is called System Image Backup. To create a complete system image in Windows 8.1 (including system partitions

Users of the "Windows family" OS may experience a constant decrease in free space on the system drive. This can happen for various reasons, one of which will be filling the WindowsImageBackup folder with heavy files. What kind of folder is this, what files are stored in it and what operations can be done with them, we will consider in this article.

What is this folder?

The WindowsImageBackup folder contains image files of a copy of your operating system, programs, system files, and settings. These images are the Backup OS, which is configured using the Windows Backup utility.

Can it be removed?

Yes, you can delete files in a folder if they take up a lot of space, but you shouldn't delete them all. Delete only old Windows recovery images. Also, you can configure backup options for flexible management of disk space.

Creating and restoring a system from an image

To create an image:

To restore the OS from an image of the WindowsImageBackup folder:

Setting archiving options

Before you start setting up, you should know that:

1. Backups are created in series (they are called archiving periods). In order not to take up much space on hard drives, the program creates copies of all files and folders once, and then makes archives of new files that appear on the PC.
2. After a certain period has passed, Windows again makes a full backup. A second full system image backup appears on your PC.
3. By default, Windows saves archives until it takes up 30% of free disk space. When the disk is full, the OS will automatically delete old images.

To set up archiving:

1. RMB on Start → Control Panel → Backup and Restore.
2. Select Space management → Archive data files → View archives. Here you can view and delete unnecessary archives.

Important! If archiving is not configured, the Space Management section will not appear.

3. To reduce the amount of disk space that is used for files for archiving, go to the "System Image" section → Change settings.
4. Also, here you can set saving only the last image of the system.

Moving or deleting a folder

You can move the folder in the usual way: by copying WindowsImageBackup and moving it to another directory. To delete, right-click to open the context menu and click delete (administrator rights required).

To turn off Windows Backup, go to "Backup and Restore" and click turn off.

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Restoring from an image means replacing all personal data on your hard drive with files from the image, or in other words, if you created an image of a local disk (C :) using the Data Archiving tool, then deploying this image in place, you will replace all your existing files on this disk with data from the image.
The article is written as a continuation, where we learned how to create an Image of the Windows 7 operating system in case of a serious malfunction, but here we will restore our data in place, even when our Windows 7 will not boot at all.

Restoring from an image

According to my observations, serious users install Windows 7 and divide the hard drive into two volumes and call them names, for example (C:) and (D:). On the drive (C:) they have the Windows 7 operating system, and on (D:) all personal data. Next, they create a disk image (C:) and save it on another partition of the hard drive, that is, on (D:). The disk (D :) is not archived, since according to users, it is usually rare with it, which happens and this is actually the case.

And then there was a problem with Windows 7, the system takes a long time to load, freezes and is unstable, our users, in the language of motorists, kick the wheels for a while (apply a rollback using restore points), but the car still does not drive, and Windows 7 does not work ok then they restore from image drive (C:) and a working Windows 7 from the archive replaces the inoperable one, that's all.
The most serious ones create an image of both the disk (C:) containing the files of the operating system, and the disk (D:) with personal data. You may notice, if you have one hard drive, where then to store the image of two partitions (C:) and (D:)? For this, an additional SATA hard drive or a portable USB hard drive is specially purchased, which must be formatted in the NTFS file system. Restore your data from the image in this case, you need to be careful, along with the faulty Windows 7 located on the disk (C :), you can replace all your files on the disk (D :), so you first need to copy everything you need, for example, to the same portable USB hard drive .
All this is written and shown in the article Creating a system image, now let's restore.

• Note: how to create and how to use a Recovery Drive, you can learn from our article How to restore a Windows 7 system. Also in this case, the Windows 7 installation disk can help, it also contains the recovery environment.

So I'll show you how to restore Windows 7 from an image using a recovery disk. We insert it into the drive, reboot, the BIOS should be set to boot from the drive, then the System Recovery Options program starts.

We quickly press Enter, otherwise the offer to boot from the disk will disappear.

The recovery environment starts, again you need to select the keyboard layout,

usedownload the latest system image and our Windows 7 is restored.
The system image is always created with the extension vhd and is in the folder Windows Image Backup.

To use a system image as a simple hard disk partition, for example, we need to extract some file from the image, and not restore the entire image, we just need to connect our image as a virtual hard disk in Disk Management.

Start->Computer->right-click and select Manage->Disk Management->Action->Attach VHD from the context menu,

Our image is being converted into a simple hard drive accessible in the Computer window.

Disadvantages of the System Imaging tool: You cannot set up automatic archiving without the help of additional software.
How to transfer an installed Windows 7 system to another computer.

Agree, as soon as the time comes to reinstall the system, you begin to think about the various programs and drivers that you will have to install again and again after installing clean Windows. I suggest not to torture your brain and just once create a system image from which you can easily and quickly install Windows 7 with all the necessary software.

Personally, for myself, I realized a long time ago that deploying an iso image of Windows 7 with all programs and drivers is much easier than periodically installing a new system with all packages. The regular application Backup and Restore Windows 7 allows you to create an image of a system disk with all programs and drivers.

Why do I need to create an iso image of the system?

2. You don't need to reinstall all drivers.

3. There is no need to download and install all the software again.

How to create a Windows 7 system image?

1. Launch the Backup and Restore application. Start->My Programs->Maintenance->Backup and Restore.

3. Select the disk on which the image will be saved. I recommend saving the image either on an external USB drive (flash drive or hard drive) or on a second hard drive partition. If you have only one disk in your system, be sure to use the article.

4. Now it remains to click the "Archive" button. In the figure you can see exactly how many gigabytes of information the archive will contain. The ISO file will turn out to be very large, since I have not reinstalled the system on my laptop for almost 2 years. Yes, there are a lot of documents.

5. We are waiting for the system to complete the Archiving. By the way, archiving 56 gigabytes was performed in only 30 minutes, pretty good.

After the system has created the image, you will be prompted to create a recovery disk. Don't postpone this task until after a major system failure. Just click the Yes button and follow the short instructions.

The system image will be stored in the "WindowsImageBackup" folder with the following structure.

How to create a bootable usb floppy

How to restore Windows 7 from an image

1. We restart the computer, and press F8 on the keyboard, we need the recovery floppy to boot. Usually F8 or F12 loads a list of devices from which you can boot to the Windows shell. You need to select a device with a recovery disk, in my case it is a DVD drive with the letter G. Alternatively, or.

2. If the recovery disk is running, the following picture will open before us.

4. Now we can either select the image manually or use the latest available one. I decided to choose the second item to check.

5. Select an image from the list, click the left mouse button, and then click the next button.

6. On the new page, click the "Next" button again.

7. If there is a desire to format the hard drive, you will need to install special drivers, and check the box next to formatting. Or just click the Next button.

8. Well, that's practically all. It remains to click the Finish button, and wait until the system image is unpacked on your hard drive.

Which of the users of Windows systems has not encountered a situation where the “OS” crashes and needs to be restored? The vast majority of uninitiated users rely on automated Windows tools, but such actions very often only lead to the fact that when critical errors and failures appear, the system simply reports that it was not possible to restore the computer. That is why restoring a computer from an image created by the OS tools or using third-party programs looks more preferable, since it allows you to bring the system to a working state in a short period of time and with a 100% guarantee (unless the external removable media on which the image was previously recorded is not damaged). And removable drives or USB drives are not always necessary.

In some cases, you can save the backup directly to the logical partition of another drive that is part of the RAID array (if it is not planned to be restored later), or, if possible, to a shared network folder on another computer.

Why create a system image?

Before proceeding with the consideration of restoring a computer from a Windows image, let's briefly dwell on why you need to create such copies at all and how it all works. When creating an image file with the VHD extension (like virtual disk files), for example, for a partition with an installed operating system, absolutely all system objects of the operating system itself, installed programs, and user data are copied to it. When using the standard procedure using Windows tools, the file is necessarily copied to removable media or an external hard drive, since the logical partition can be located on the same physical disk as the one being archived (then it can be copied to any other location).

When you start restoring a computer from an image, in the partition for which this procedure is performed, all content is completely overwritten with formatting, as a result of which absolutely all files and directories (even damaged ones) are replaced with those that were saved in the image. It is easy to guess that in the end the user gets a working system in the form in which it was before the appearance of failures or fatal errors.

How to make an image of one or more partitions?

Now a few words about how to prepare for restoring a computer from an image. It goes without saying that this image must be created in advance by selecting a partition for which such operations may be required. In all modifications of Windows for this, in the "Control Panel" there is a special section for archiving (backup) and recovery, in which the creation of an image is selected.

After the procedure is initiated, the location for saving the image, the partition to be archived are indicated, and the main procedure is launched. Please note that when choosing DVDs as the media, you may need an extremely large number of them. Therefore, it is best to save the image either on an external HDD or on the Web.

Note: sometimes you can use the archiving settings item, and then tell the system on which disk the created copies will be stored.

Restoring a computer from a Windows 7 image: the standard option for starting the process

So, we assume that the image is created. Now you can proceed directly to the procedure for restoring a computer from an image, if necessary. In a working system, for this in Windows 7 and below, the above section is used, where the items for restoring system settings and advanced recovery methods are selected in turn.

After that, the use of the previously created image is indicated, and the archiving item is skipped. The final step is to confirm the restart of the computer. Finally, after that, the language layout is selected, the user is selected, and the access password is entered, if it is set. When a window with recovery options appears, it marks the option to restore the image, and then searches for the latest available image.

After completing all the preliminary steps, all that remains is to confirm the operation (you can skip setting up additional options such as excluding disks, re-partitioning or installing drivers).

Restoring a computer from a system image when Windows cannot boot

Now it is worth considering the situation when some irreversible failures occurred in the system, but the image was previously created and saved on removable media.

In this case, you will first need to enter a special start menu called in Windows 7 and below by pressing the F8 key, select the troubleshooting item and go through the above procedure.

You can do it even easier by first setting the emergency media with the image in the BIOS / UEFI settings as the first device to start. Such actions are more necessary to restore a computer from an image of Windows 8 and higher. In the process, the layout and image file are selected in the same way, after which the restoration is confirmed. If the desired file is stored in the logical partition, but the recovery tool does not find it on its own, you must specify its location. This is usually the WindowsImageBackup directory.

Windows 10: recovery procedure

Restoring a computer from a Windows 10 image can be done by following the steps described.

But in the case of self-activation of the process in a running system, you will have to use the item of special boot options (to get to the start menu, which is not called up with the F8 key during boot), and only then use the image created earlier.

Starting automatic recovery with image selection

It is not uncommon to encounter situations where a user initially relies on using an automated rollback of the system to a previous state, but after completing all the steps, a message appears on the screen stating that the computer did not start correctly and the system could not be restored. Starting auto-recovery is usually carried out by forcibly turning off the computer or laptop three times, turning it on again and interrupting the download. For the fourth time, the rollback starts.

But when this notification appears, many do not pay attention to the fact that the window has an additional options button. You need to press it, and then, as in all previous cases, select the appropriate item using the previously created image.

How to use an image file located in a networked environment?

Finally, restoring a computer from an image to a networked environment is just as easy. Initially, the file itself can just be saved on the hard drive of another terminal, but the folder with the image (images) itself will need to be shared, and the computer terminal itself can be detected on the Network (for example, when connected wirelessly). In this case, restoring a computer from an image in a network folder may take a little longer, due to some speed limitations of the network connection itself, which affects data copying. But the actions performed are practically no different from what was presented above.

Note: if there are several images in the directory, be especially careful when choosing the source file, because instead of your own system, you can get someone else's system with unnecessary programs and user files installed in it.

Partial file recovery

But the use of images is not limited to the above actions, because sometimes the operating system may not need to be restored, and only lost or some damaged files need to be returned. In such a situation, the image file can be used as a regular virtual hard disk. To do this, just call the computer management via PCM on the computer icon (in Windows 10 it is located directly in the "Explorer" and not on the "Desktop", and then use the hard drive tool. The easiest way to call it from the "Run" console is with the command diskmgmt.msc.

Next, in the "Action" menu, select the connection of a virtual hard disk and specify the path to the file with the VHD extension (to the same previously created image). After that, you just need to select the desired file and click the open button. The disk will appear in Explorer, and it will be possible to copy the necessary information from it, as from a regular logical partition.

Disadvantages of the Standard Method

Alas, the standard method, to put it mildly, does not inspire confidence in many users, since it has a number of significant shortcomings. The main one is that it is not possible to fully configure archiving using automatic mode (this may require additional utilities). And with this approach, depending on the size of the system or logical partition itself, the backup copy can take up quite a lot of space. For example, with a system partition size of 235 GB and a occupied space of 80 GB, 164 GB is needed to create an image. It remains only to use external media in the form of a USB-HDD, since such an amount of data will not fit on any flash drive. And we are not talking about optical media at all. Do you have any idea how many discs (even two-layer ones) will be needed, not to mention the time spent copying files?

Third party software products

As for specialized programs from third-party developers, the True Image utility from Acronis seems to be the most relevant. In it, and create an image, and much easier than using standard Windows tools.

It is believed that one of the most important "chips" of the program is the ability to directly save the image in the Acronis cloud service, although many note that this service is paid and is actually simply imposed on users. In addition, storing the image on a remote server is not the best and safest solution, especially if the image file contains important confidential information. Naturally, the program can also configure automatic archiving and create bootable recovery media in advance. But this is already a clear plus.

Afterword

That's it in a nutshell and that's all about the computer using the previously created image. The main emphasis was placed exclusively on the tools and tools of Windows systems, since many users of special third-party applications may simply not be at hand. And in such a situation, you can perform a rollback with a very high degree of probability of a successful system recovery.