Is it possible to make a full image backup of an SSD on Windows?

Question

Recently, I've moved from a Mac to a PC laptop. I already used Windows on the MacBook with Parallels. Because it was a virtual machine, I could make a complete backup by just copying the virtual machine file. When I needed to restore a previous version of the machine, I just had to paste the old file on the same place.

This was very convenient, because, as a software developer, it's always a hassle to configure a new environment; usually I lose days doing things such installing apps, configure, personalizing and so on.

Is there an effective way to make full image of the SSD, so if I need to restore it in the future, I just restore the image? This would mean to restore the exact settings, apps, data, everything, just like I used to do on Parallels, but on a regular Windows laptop.

Answer 1

u1686_grawity's answer is good. You can also use a tool like CloneZilla to make images and restore them to both VM's and bare metal.

Answer 2

I use a tool called Macrium Reflect. It can copy disks/SSDs and partitions. Also, it resizes partitions for when you get a larger disk/SSD.

I am not associated with them in any way (just a customer).

Answer 3

Windows has the "System Restore" function which uses filesystem snapshots and lets you revert the entire OS to an earlier state from the same disk (or to extract old files) – as long as the OS is still functioning.

If you want to store the images on an external disk, Windows doesn't have good tools for that¹, but there are many third-party products for full system backup as well as disk cloning.

It depends on whether you need one-off or continuous backups – a cloning/imaging program will create simple disk images but will take longer to create a full image every time, whereas a backup program will typically use a custom archive format that only it can extract but the advantage is that it can keep track of what changed leading to much faster backup times (so that you could have daily or even hourly past versions if needed). Usually both kinds have a bootable environment for restoring onto an empty system.

---

¹ As far as built-in tools go, Windows does come with the "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" app but as the name implies it's not really supported anymore except for restoring old backups. Ignore the new "Windows Backup" app which is basically OneDrive in disguise.

Sysinternals Disk2vhd could be used to manually create a whole-disk image in the .vhdx format (the same as used by Hyper-V, so in theory it could be booted as a VM); unfortunately there's no easy tool for restoring such images back to a physical disk – as far as I know, the only option you have is a Linux live USB with qemu-img or qemu-nbd on it.

A Windows install USB could be used to create .wim format images (file-based archives) using DISM – it's the official tool that's used to install Windows as well as make preconfigured OS images – but it's a bit slow when you want to image a well-used system that's in the hundreds of gigabytes... and it's file-based so restoring it is quite tedious. (I'm also not 100% sure whether it reproduces certain NTFS attributes.)

Answer 4

I've used Acronis True Image successfully for a long while. It does scheduled backups, incremental backups, backup of the running system, and restore from a network drive; it's all there, but all Windows backup software should have that, actually.

One thing's missing, though (that's present for any sensible virtual machine backup software): booting and running the system directly from the backup without having to go through the time-consuming restoration process first.

Answer 5

Microsoft considers this tool deprecated in the client versions of Windows, so use at your own risk, but I have used this many times to create and restore full system disk images (usually to move from an old, slow SSD to a newer, bigger and faster SSD):

Create the image

1. Start/Search for "Control Panel".
2. "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)".
3. "Create a system image" (in the left-hand menu).

Restore the image

1. Boot from a Windows installation USB stick (created with Rufus and a Windows ISO).
2. Select language, time format and keyboard/Next
3. "Repair your PC" (small link in the lower left-hand corner)
4. Troubleshoot
5. System Image Recovery

The backup will be stored as a vhd image, so, as an additional bonus, you can recover individual files easily without having to perform a full restore.

Answer 6

If Windows isn't being run within a VM, full disk images are ill-advised because they're literally not needed unless deploying to multiple machines specifically via FFU images; outside of that, there's literally no use case for partition-level or disk-level images within Windows since Win ≥ XP uses NTFS as the default filesystem (specific to this question, the OS partition is the only partition needing to be imaged).

Due to this, and excluding FFU images, a conventional partition-level or disk-level image containing offset, alignment, block size, etc. isn't required in Windows, and they:

• lack native Windows support and therefore require third-party programs and non-standard Windows boot media
• often lack compression and parity, the main advantages of the Windows Image file format
  • WIMs/ESDs can contain multiple images within a relatively small single image file, with data impossible to corrupt provided /CheckIntegrity and /Verify are always used
• lock the image to that specific partition or drive layout (offset, alignment, block size, etc.)
• often have no data verification, therefore are subject to data corruption
  
  

---

Imaging

_{PowerShell Mapping | Win ≥ 8: Dism | Win ≤ 7: ImageX}

The initial base WIM/ESD does take longer to capture than third-party cloning because parity is built-in to the WIM/ESD file format; after the base image, subsequent appended images take less time. A WIM/ESD can contain multiple images within a relatively small single image file, with data impossible to corrupt provided /CheckIntegrity and /Verify are always used

• WIMs (Windows IMage) can capture an entire partition or individual folders/files
• ESDs (Electronic Software Distribution) can only capture an OS partition and must use /Compress:Recovery (algorithm is ~33% more efficient than /Compress:Max)
  • Windows ≥ 10: Can only be used for PBR [Push-Button Reset] exported images
  • Windows ≤ 8.1: Can be used on a bootable Windows install or a PBR image
    
    
• Specify exclusions or exceptions by creating a WimScript.ini config file, with /ScratchDir being required in WinPE since it only has 32MB of scratch [temp] space by default
  • To negate the need of /ScratchDir, see section WinPE/WinRE Customizations
    
    
• Even though /CheckIntegrity (ImageX: /Check) and /Verify do extend the image processing time, they should always be used since they prevent data corruption from occurring within the WIM/ESD
  
  

---

Prerequisites

1. Boot to WinRE: (OS partition can only be captured from WinPE)
   1. Open an Admin terminal: +R → Open: powershell → Ctrl+Shift+OK

      shutdown /r /o /f /t 00
      

   2. Troubleshoot → Advanced options → Command Prompt
      
      
2. Identify the mount point of the offline OS partition: (it's likely not C:)
   1. DiskPart → either:
      • lis vol → sel vol # → det vol → exit
      • lis dis → sel dis # → lis par → sel par # → det par → exit
        
        

---

Capture Image OR Append Image

3. Either:
   1. Capture a base image:

      # Mount Points:
        # C: offline OS partition
        # Z: partition WIM is being saved to
      Windows ≥8: DISM
      Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:"Z:\Base.wim" /CaptureDir:"C:" /Name:"Windows Backup" /Description:"Base Image 2023.11.17 @ 12:00" /Compress:Max /CheckIntegrity /Verify /ScratchDir:"Z:"
      Windows XP ≤ 7: ImageX
      ImageX /Capture "C:" "Z:\Base.esd" "Windows Backup" "Base Image 2023.11.17 @ 12:00" /Compress:Recovery /Check /Verify /ScratchDir:"Z:"
      

      • Mechanical HDD: since compression takes longer if using /Compress:<Max||Recovery>, if time's an issue, it's more efficient to use /Compress:Fast, exporting the index later using Max or Recovery
        
        
   2. Append an image to an existing WIM:

      # Mount Points
        # C: offline OS partition
        # Z: partition containing the WIM
      Windows ≥8: DISM
      Dism /Append-Image /ImageFile:"Z:\Base.wim" /CaptureDir:"C:" /Name:"Windows Backup" /Description:"Appended Image 2023.11.17 @ 12:00" /CheckIntegrity /Verify /ScratchDir:"Z:"
      Windows XP ≤ 7: ImageX
      ImageX /Append "C:" "Z:\Base.esd" "Windows Backup" "Appended Image 2023.11.17 @ 12:00" /Compress:Recovery /Check /Verify /ScratchDir:"Z:"
      

      • Compression is locked to the value set when the base image was captured
      • Individual indexes can be deleted via /Delete-Image or exported to their own WIM/ESD via /Export-Image
        
        

---

Apply Image

4. Format the offline OS partition:
   1. DiskPart → lis dis → sel dis # → lis par → sel par #
   2. Verify correct partition selected: det par
   3. format fs=ntfs quick label=OS → det par
   4. If mount point [Ltr] still exists → exit; if not: assign letter=O → exit

        Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
        ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
      * Volume 8     O   OS           NTFS   Partition    300 GB  Healthy    Boot
      

      
      
5. /Get-ImageInfo to ensure correct index [image] is being applied:

   # Windows ≥8: DISM
     Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:"Z:\Base.wim"
   Windows XP ≤ 7: ImageX
   ImageX /Info "Z:\Base.wim"
   

   
   
6. Apply image to the offline OS partition:

     # Mount Points
       # C: offline OS partition image is being applied to
       # Z: partition containing the WIM
   Windows ≥8: DISM
   Dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:"Z:\Base.wim" /Index:1 /ApplyDir:"C:" /CheckIntegrity /Verify /ScratchDir:"Z:"
   Windows XP ≤ 7: ImageX
   ImageX /Apply "Z:\Base.wim" 1 "C:" /Check /Verify /ScratchDir:"Z:"
   

   
   
7. BootRec must be run prior to exiting WinPE/WinRE:
   • BIOS:

     BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /FixBoot && BootRec /RebuildBCD
     

   • UEFI:

     ::# With existing bootable EFI partition:
         BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /RebuildBCD
     ::# Without existing bootable EFI partition:
         ::# Create EFI directories and enter:
             MkDir "Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot"
             Cd /d "Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot"
     ::# Create EFI boot structure:
         BootRec /Fixboot
     
         ::# If Access Denied error occurs (C: is applied image):
             BcdBoot C:\Windows /s Y: /f UEFI
     
     ::# Resolve any other boot issues:
         BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /RebuildBCD
     
     

     
     

---

---

Appended WIM Example

PS $  ls -file "Z:\WIM"
Directory: Z:\WIM
Mode                LastWriteTime            Length  Name
----                -------------            ------  ----
-a----        2023.09.05 00:33:46   40,193,295,546B  Base.wim
-a----        2023.09.05 00:07:12              568B  Dism.cmd
-a----        2023.09.05 00:09:51               97B  WimScript.ini



PS $  Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:"Z:\WIM\base.wim"
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
  Version: 10.0.22621.1
Details for image : Z:\WIM\base.wim

  Index : 1
    Name : Alienware 18: Windows 11
    Description : v22H2: Base (Drivers & Updates Only)
    Size : 48,259,986,179 bytes

  Index : 2
    Name : Alienware 18: Windows 11
    Description : v22H2: Programs Installed (Customizations Applied)
    Size : 74,666,504,006 bytes

PS $ Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:"Z:\WIM\base.wim" /Index:1

  Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
  Version: 10.0.22621.1

    Details for image : Z:\WIM\base.wim

      Index : 1
        Name : Alienware 18: Windows 11
        Description : v22H2: Base (Drivers & Updates Only)
        Size : 48,259,986,179 bytes
        WIM Bootable : No
        Architecture : x64
        Hal : COMPUTER\Generic
        Version : 10.0.22621
        ServicePack Build : 2215
        ServicePack Level : 0
        Edition : Professional
        Installation : Client
        ProductType : WinNT
        ProductSuite : Terminal Server
        System Root : WINDOWS
        Directories : 48508
        Files : 195745
        Created : 2023.08.28 - 22:09:33
        Modified : 2023.08.28 - 22:09:34
        Languages : en-US (Default)


PS $  Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:"Z:\WIM\base.wim" /Index:2

  Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
  Version: 10.0.22621.1

    Details for image : Z:\WIM\base.wim

      Index : 2
        Name : Alienware 18: Windows 11
        Description : v22H2: Programs Installed (Customizations Applied)
        Size : 74,666,504,006 bytes
        WIM Bootable : No
        Architecture : x64
        Hal : COMPUTER\Generic
        Version : 10.0.22621
        ServicePack Build : 2215
        ServicePack Level : 0
        Edition : Professional
        Installation : Client
        ProductType : WinNT
        ProductSuite : Terminal Server
        System Root : WINDOWS
        Directories : 60460
        Files : 275154
        Created : 2023.09.04 - 23:30:09
        Modified : 2023.09.04 - 23:30:10
        Languages : en-US (Default)

---

---

Configure New Drive

1. DiskPart:

   ::# List disks:
       Lis Dis
   ::# Select OS drive # WIM is being applied to:
       Sel Dis #
   ::# Wipe partition table (assumes no data on drive is being preserved)
       Clean
   

   UEFI:

   Convert Gpt
   

   
   
2. Create boot partition:
   • BIOS:

     Cre Par Pri Offset=1024 Size=100
     Format Quick Fs=NTFS Label=Boot
     Active
     

   • UEFI:

     Cre Par EFI Offset=1024 Size=100
     Format Quick Fs=FAT32 Label=EFI
     Assign Letter=Y
     Cre Par Msr Size=16
     

   
   
3. Create System partition:
   • Rest of the drive as the System partition:
     If C: can't be assigned, change 3 & 5 to another letter
     • BIOS:

       Cre Par Pri
       Format Quick Fs=NTFS Label=System
       Exit
       

     • UEFI:

       Cre Par Pri Id=ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
       Format Quick Fs=NTFS Label=System
       Assign Letter=C
       Exit
       

   • Additional partitions after the [200GB] System partition:
     If storing User Data directories on a partition other than C:\ (recommended), max size required is ~300GB (multiply size wanted by 1024: 200*1024=204800)
     • BIOS:

       Cre Par Pri Size=204800
       Format Quick Fs=NTFS Label=System
       Exit
       

     • UEFI:

       Cre Par Pri Size=204800 Id=ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
       Format Quick Fs=NTFS Label=System
       Assign Letter=C
       Exit
       

       
       
4. Create WinRE partition: (should have 320MB free to allow for future WIM size increases)
   • BIOS:

     Shrink Desired=665 Minimum=650 
     Cre Par Pri id=27
     Format Quick Fs=NTFS Label=WinRE
     

   • UEFI:

     Shrink Desired=665 Minimum=650
     Cre Par Pri Id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
     Format Quick Fs=NTFS Label=WinRE
     Gpt Attributes=0x8000000000000001
     

   
   
5. Resolve any boot issues: (once WIM has been applied)
   • BIOS:

     BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /FixBoot && BootRec /RebuildBCD
     

   • UEFI:

     ::# With existing bootable EFI partition:
         BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /RebuildBCD
     ::# Without existing bootable EFI partition:
       ::# Create EFI directories and enter:
           MkDir "Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot"
           Cd /d "Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot"
     ::# Create EFI boot structure:
           BootRec /Fixboot
       ::# If Access Denied error occurs (C: is applied image):
           BcdBoot C:\Windows /s Y: /f UEFI
     
     
     ::# Resolve any other boot issues:
           BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /RebuildBCD
     

     
     
6. Remove EFI mountpoint and Reboot:

   DiskPart
   Sel Vol Y
     Remove
     Exit
   

   
   

---

---

WinPE/WinRE Customizations

To increase the temp space available in WinPE/WinRE, negating the need for /ScratchDir:

WinPE

1. Open an Admin terminal: +R → Open: powershell → Ctrl+Shift+OK

2. ## <InstallUSB>: drive letter for the Install USB ##
   Create working directory:
   MkDir "C:\Mount"
   Get correct image index (Windows Setup is usually #2):
   Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:"<InstallUSB>:\sources\boot.wim"
   Mount WinPE Windows Setup WIM:
   Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"<InstallUSB>:\sources\boot.wim" /Index:2 /MountDir:"C:\Mount"
   Load WinPE SYSTEM hive:
   Reg Load HKLM\WinPE "C:\Mount\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM"
   Show hidden files:
   Reg Add HKLM\WinPE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v Hidden /t REG_DWORD /d 1
   Reg Add HKLM\WinPE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v ShowSuperHidden /t REG_DWORD /d 1
   
   
   Show file extensions:
   Reg Add HKLM\WinPE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v HideFileExt /t REG_DWORD /d 0
   
   
   Unload Hive:
   Reg Unload HKLM\WinPE
   
   
   Set WinPE default temp space to 512MB:
   Dism /Set-ScratchSpace:512 /Image:"C:\Mount"
   Unmount WinPE Windows Setup WIM:
   Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:"C:\Mount" /Commit
   Cleanup:
   RmDir /s /q "C:\Mount"
   

WinRE

1. Open an Admin terminal: +R → Open: powershell → Ctrl+Shift+OK
2. Mount WinRE partition:
   DiskPart → lis vol → sel vol # → det vol → assign letter=W → exit

3. # Create working directory:
     MkDir "C:\Mount"
   Mount WinRE WIM:
   Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"W:\Recovery\WindowsRE\winre.wim" /Index:1 /MountDir:"C:\Mount"
   Load WinRE SYSTEM hive:
   Reg Load HKLM\WinRE "C:\Mount\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM"
   Show hidden files:
   Reg Add HKLM\WinRE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v Hidden /t REG_DWORD /d 1
   Reg Add HKLM\WinRE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v ShowSuperHidden /t REG_DWORD /d 1
   
   
   Show file extensions:
   Reg Add HKLM\WinRE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v HideFileExt /t REG_DWORD /d 0
   
   
   Unload Hive:
   Reg Unload HKLM\WinRE
   
   
   Set WinRE default temp space to 512MB:
   Dism /Set-ScratchSpace:512 /Image:"C:\Mount"
   Unmount WinRE WIM:
   Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:"C:\Mount" /Commit
   Cleanup:
   RmDir /s /q "C:\Mount"
   

4. Unmount WinRE partition: DiskPart → sel vol W → remove → exit