Many of the tips I wrote explain the importance of creating a regular system backup if your computer’s hard drive fails or some other disaster wipes your Windows installation.
It’s essential to always have a recent backup in emergencies. Still, one of my blog’s loyal readers recently pointed out that I never explained how to restore a PC from System backup. The purpose of this post is to correct that scrutiny.
The procedure for restoring from System Image is quite similar for both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Make sure you have a System Repair Disc or USB Recovery Drive with Image Image system backup ready, then do follow the steps below:
1 – Connect an external hard drive containing your System backup to your PC.
2 – Insert system repair disc or USB recovery drive and then turn on the machine by pressing the power button.
3 – Change your PC’s BIOS / UEFI settings to force the system to boot from the drive containing the System Repair Disc or USB Recovery Drive.
4 – If prompted to do so, press any key on the keyboard to boot from the CD / DVD drive or USB drive.
5 – When prompted, select the appropriate keyboard layout.
6 – When the screen appears “Choose an option”, selectTroublshoot.
7 – Select Advanced options.
8 – Select System Image Recovery.
9 – If prompted to do so, a select user account with Administrator, then enter the password for that account if asked.
10 – Select the operating system(there may be only one listed). The “Re-image your computer” dialog box will appear.
11 – To restore from an existing System Image backup, click theNext button. To restore from a previous backup, click Select a system image and then click Next.
12 – In most cases, you can bypass the “Format and repartition disks” and “Install drivers” options and click the next button.
13 – Click the Finish button to start the restore process.
14 – You will now get a warning that restoring files from the System Image backup will overwrite any data currently on the restored hard drive. ClickYesto continues.
Windows will begin restoring all the files from the backup image. Depending on how much data you need to recover, this process can take a pretty long time, maybe even a few hours.
Yes, that’s all it takes to restore Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 PC from a System Image backup.
The process of restoring Windows 7 backup photos is very similar. Connect the backup drive to your PC, boot your computer from the System Repair Disc, then follow the prompts as required.
