Windows 10 - Strategy For Creating Disk Image & Recovery Disk

GoshenGeek · May 25, 2020

WIndows 10 Home edition, Version 1909

What strategy do folks follow in creating disk images & recovery disk? Do you recreate these after every Micosoft update or just do it once? Should these be recreated after a major Win 10 update such as going from Win 10 1909 to 2004?
Thanks.

Earthling · May 26, 2020

First thing I do is organise my computer to make imaging and data backup easier, quicker and safer. So all my personal stuff is moved off of the OS disk/partition to a data disk/partition. I image the OS partition towards the end of each month providing it has no known issues. Systems with unresolved issues I do not image at all. I usually keep the three latest images only, never old images - I would rather reinstall than load an old image and be faced with all the updating it needs. Must admit I rarely update the recovery disk other than when Windows is updated to a new version such as 7 to 10. That's the routine side of it, but I also take an image before trying out anything at all risky or unknown such as when I converted this laptop from BIOS/MBR to UEFI/GPT.

I do not use an imaging program for backing up my own data.

plodr · May 26, 2020

I create a recovery DVD as soon as I bring a new computer into the house. After I've cleaned it up and it is updated, I make an image.
If the manufacturer has instructions for making program and driver disks, I burn them too. You can never have too many disks to take your computer back to almost new condition.

I don't run Windows 10 but I still image our four Windows 7 computers every 4- 6 weeks. I used to image BEFORE the monthly Windows update just in case something went seriously wrong. Rather than spending hours trying to fix what the bad update did, I restored the image and avoided the update until I got the all clear that the problems had been solved.

Store the images off the computer. Buy a portable external hard drive and only plug it in when you do an image. That serves two purposes: a) the external won't get infected if something infects the computer and b) the drive will last longer.
In fact, get 2 external drives and rotate them.
I just read a horror story this week. A person's 7 TB external hard drive with all his backups on it is no longer being recognized. That has to be really painful!

From decades ago, I decided to have at minimum 2 copies of every file, picture, etc. that I didn't want to lose. It has saved us a few times when floppies go bad, USB sticks have problems, CDs can't be read.

Log in or Sign up

Windows 10 - Strategy For Creating Disk Image & Recovery Disk

GoshenGeek Corporal

Earthling Interplanetary Geek

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member