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Windows 10 Backup and Restore Your Entire Windows 10 PC

How to Backup and Restore Your Entire Windows 10 PC

By Sophia | Last Updated

A complete backup protects against hardware failure, malware, or system issues by capturing your OS, apps, settings, and personal files. Here's how to do it effectively. In this article, you can learn two ways to backup and restore your entire computer in Windows 10.

backup and restore your Windows 10 pc

Way 1: Backup and Restore with Windows 10 Backup and Restore Utility

There is the built-in utility in Windows 10 computer which can help to create the full backup for your computer. The Backup and Restore utility makes it easy to backup the drives in your computer.

Backup Windows 10 PC

Step 1: Get another disk connected to your computer so that you can save the backup image in the disk. It is necessary to make sure the disk has large capacity.

Step 2: Access Control Panel and choose Backup and Restore (Windows 7) function.

Step 3: On the left side, click the Create a system image option.

click Create a system image

Step 4: On the prompt, select the drive to save the backup and follow the steps to start the backup.

select destination to save backup

Restore Your PC from a System Image

If there is error in your Windows 10 PC and you want to restore the backup, just enter your computer WinPE and select Troubleshoot> System Image Recovery. After that, you can select the backup source and complete the restoration. Finally, reboot and confirm everything is restored.

choose System Image Recovery

Way 2: Backup and Restore Your PC with iSunshare CloneGo

Things can be easy when you find the suitable way and reliable tool. To move the full content of the Windows 10 PC to another, you can full backup each partition in your Windows 10 pc firstly, then restore all the partition backups in an SSD and boot another Windows 10 computer from the SSD at last. In the process of executing the way above, a third-party tool—iSunshare CloneGo, the Windows backup and restore utility will be applied. With the help of CloneGo, you can backup and restore your entire Windows 10 pc without data loss.

Except that iSunshare CloneGo has the easy-to-use but powerful backup and restore features, its Make Boot Disk feature is an important reason to choose it. As we all know, WinPE is the mini Windows system that performs well in backing up and restoring Windows 10/8/7. And the Make Boot Disk feature is developed by taking advantage of the features of WinPE, which can help 100% backing up and restoring the Windows 10 pc.

Preparations:

1. Install iSunshare CloneGo in the backed-up Windows 10 pc.

2. Insert a USB disk into the backed-up Windows 10 pc. The USB disk is used to be the bootable drive of WinPE.

3. Connect a large enough SSD to the backed-up Windows 10 pc and please backup the content in it if there are files in the SSD. If the connected SSD is a new one, you have to make it recognizable.

CloneGo boxshot

iSunshare Reliable Disk/Partition Clone Software

  • Completely back up and restore your Windows PC
  • Easily create a WinPE to back up data without booting OS
  • Transfer Windows OS to another drive in clicks
  • Support Windows 11/10/8/7

Overview

1. Boot the Backed-up Windows 10 PC in WinPE

Step 1: Run CloneGo and click the Make Boot Disk option to create the WinPE. Then, 2 options will be shown for you to make the WinPE drive, which are Create PE in current system environment and Select WIM file to make PE. You can choose one of them to create WinPE.

Tips: If the first option is unable to choose, it means that there isn't the PE file in your Windows computer.

Difference between the two options for making PE:

The option that Create PE in current system environment enables the made PE work well on the Windows computer that creates the PE.

directly create PE

The PE made by the option Select WIM file to make PE can be used on other Windows computers, besides the computer that creates it.

use wim file to make PE

Step 2: Select the USB device to store the made WinPE and you will get the Format USB box. Just confirm it.

format the chosen usb device

Step 3: Then the software will begin to burn WinPE into the USB device. After it's over, you need to start the computer and enter the BIOS/UEFI/Boot Menu to make the pc start from the USB device.

Make PE process

2. Backup Partitions in the Windows 10 PC

As the same disk will be identified with different drive letters in Windows 10 and WinPE, for example, the drive letter of Windows 10 D disk may be changed from D to E in the WinPE. You can recognize each drive through its total size or free size in the user interface of CloneGo.

Step 1: After successful WinPE boot, CloneGo will be shown directly without any click. Then just tap the Backup button and select the backed-up partition under the Select a volume to back up option.

select backup button and the backed-up volume

Step 2: Hit the Choose button to select a volume or folder in the SSD to save the backup file.

select the partition to save the backup

Step 3: Click the Start button and when a prompt is popped out to ask for the confirmation of the backup operation, you can hit the Yes button to move on.

start creating windows 10 partition backup

Step 4: When the backup operation is finished, a small box will be shown to tell you. You can click the OK button to continue your usage.

finish backing up windows 10 partition

3. Restore the Partition Backups of Windows 10 PC

Step 1: In the CloneGo of WinPE environment, select the Restore button in the left pane.

hit restore button

Step 2: Click the volume in the SSD to be the restoration destination.

choose the restoration destination in ssd

Step 3: Input the backup file by clicking the Choose button and selecting the file.

input the backup to restore

When you restore the system backup, you can check Set the target partition as the boot disk, which will make the restored Windows 10 bootable. Aside from this, you can use the After Finished function to shutdown/restart/hibernate your pc after the restoration operation ends.

2 optional options

Step 4: Start the restoration and hit the Yes button when a tips message is popped out to remind you the restoration destination will be formatted.

confirm the restoration operation

Step 5: After the backup process is finished, you can see a prompted box written with Restore the backup successfully, just choose the OK button to exit it.

complete restoration

To backup your entire pc with Windows 10 installed and restore the partition backups completely in the SSD, you can realize it by repeating the operations in Part Two and Part Three. Then just connect the SSD to the new or another Windows 10 pc and boot the pc from the SSD to get the operating environment which is the same as that of your original Windows 10 computer.

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