I would try to start up repair from rescue media or Windows installation disk first. If that did not work I would see if I could roll back to a restore point via the rescue media or Windows installation disk. Last of all I would do an upgrade install over the top of my existing windows.
Followed your instructions but when I looked at the image file on my external hard drive it showed as being empty and the properties for that file show as 0 bytes. Please help
I have run through the software recently to verify it worked for me. The only thing I can think that might be causing the error is having the external drive formatted with FAT32 or exFAT instead of the NTFS file system.
You should be able to create the system image from the 250 and restore it to a 1TB. That is what I did. After restoring, I had to use disk manager to extend the c drive partition to use all the new space.
When I bought my Windows 10 desktop a couple of years ago, my first action was to do what this video describes. I completed the entire process, with no apparent problems. However, when I checked the system image on the external hard drive, it was an empty shell. Zero gigabytes inside. A trawl of the internet revealed that the system image facility had been disabled during a Microsoft update. So this video is no longer valid for all PCs operating from that update onward. The problem for many people will be that they don't discover that they have a useless empty shell until they need it to recover their PC. There are literally dozens of videos like this one and not one of them declares the above. Edit to update: I created a system image using the method described in this video and, as predicted in my comment above, ended up with an empty shell - 0 bytes, 0 files, 0 folders. It took an hour to create...absolutely nothing.
Before replying to your comment, I went back and completely updated a Windows 10 machine and then created a system image as shown in the video. I then turned around and restored the image back to the lab machine. It worked perfectly. I also did the same thing on an updated Windows 11 machine. Again, it worked perfectly. I am not sure what you are seeing. Is it possible that your destination is formatted FAT32? FAT32 has limits on maximum file size that may interfere with the system image utility.
Here I made system image with AOMEI and restore to another PC, worked like charm!
Great
What if my computer cannot boot and I have no system image either
I would try to start up repair from rescue media or Windows installation disk first. If that did not work I would see if I could roll back to a restore point via the rescue media or Windows installation disk. Last of all I would do an upgrade install over the top of my existing windows.
Thank you for this tutorial, it worked well for me. And Aomei is also good to do this.
Glad it helped.
Great instructional video! Straight and to the point! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you for the kind words.
I used Aomei to backup my system it's nice.
There are many such products. Have have also used Acronis True Image.
You made it very clear and plain, helpful indeed. And I achieved with aomei it's nice.
Glad it was helpful!
By bare bones you mean like a fresh install, no programs backed up correct?
Yes, boot from USB or DVD and restore the image to a totally blank hard drive.
Followed your instructions but when I looked at the image file on my external hard drive it showed as being empty and the properties for that file show as 0 bytes. Please help
I have run through the software recently to verify it worked for me. The only thing I can think that might be causing the error is having the external drive formatted with FAT32 or exFAT instead of the NTFS file system.
Hi, say I replace my laptop 250g m.2 sad to 1tb sad, does it work as well? Gonna do it soon, thanks.
You should be able to create the system image from the 250 and restore it to a 1TB. That is what I did. After restoring, I had to use disk manager to extend the c drive partition to use all the new space.
@@TheNerdIsIn Thanks for the reply, I definitely follow what you did. :-)
Thanks! I'll be doing this since my Alienware (Dell) got corrupted twice now... not taking any chances anymore.
Thank you
Keep up the good work. Thanks
Does it work even if you download Win10_21H1_English_x64.iso from microsoft?
I have my students make a system image and restore it every semester. To my knowledge is works with previous and current versions of windows 10.
can you use a ssd instead of hard drive ?
Absolutely. SSD is just a different type of Hard Drive
When I bought my Windows 10 desktop a couple of years ago, my first action was to do what this video describes. I completed the entire process, with no apparent problems. However, when I checked the system image on the external hard drive, it was an empty shell. Zero gigabytes inside.
A trawl of the internet revealed that the system image facility had been disabled during a Microsoft update.
So this video is no longer valid for all PCs operating from that update onward. The problem for many people will be that they don't discover that they have a useless empty shell until they need it to recover their PC. There are literally dozens of videos like this one and not one of them declares the above.
Edit to update: I created a system image using the method described in this video and, as predicted in my comment above, ended up with an empty shell - 0 bytes, 0 files, 0 folders. It took an hour to create...absolutely nothing.
Before replying to your comment, I went back and completely updated a Windows 10 machine and then created a system image as shown in the video. I then turned around and restored the image back to the lab machine. It worked perfectly. I also did the same thing on an updated Windows 11 machine. Again, it worked perfectly.
I am not sure what you are seeing. Is it possible that your destination is formatted FAT32? FAT32 has limits on maximum file size that may interfere with the system image utility.
Thank you for video
Thank you for the kind words.