There are two functions associated with system images. Firstly, they can be created, and secondly, they can be used to completely restore the system.
To create an image, you will have to visit the “File History” section in the Control Panel (Control Panel | File History). Please note that this is in the Control Panel, and not in the main Metro interface “File History Settings”, so be careful when selecting the desired item in the search results on the start screen
In the “File History” window that opens, pay attention to the “Create a system image” link in the lower left corner. She opens the familiar “Create a System Image” wizard, in which everything remains the same.
To restore the system from an image - that is, completely return it to a certain state - simply connect the external drive on which the image file is stored. Then go to PC Settings | Update and recovery | Recovery" and click the "Restart Now" button under "Advanced Startup". The computer will restart.
On the Choose an Option screen, select Troubleshoot. In the "Diagnostics" section, select " Additional options"(Advanced Options). On the Advanced Options screen, select System Image Recovery. The computer will reboot again.
On the System Image Restore screen, select your username and enter your password. The System Image Recovery Wizard will launch. On the first page select the desired image, then click “Next” and follow all the instructions in the wizard to restore the system from the specified image.
Is this the best backup and restore method for Windows 8.1? No. But those who still want to use it can rejoice: it still works. And of course, this is very convenient if you have images of previous versions of Windows lying around.
The Windows 8 recovery disc contains a powerful set of tools for diagnosing and restoring the operating system. It can help if problems occur Windows work.
If you have not yet created a system repair disk, then this can be done on your or any other computer with a working a copy of Windows 8.
The recovery disk can be written to a flash drive or CD/DVD media.
And now everything is in order:
Note: Using these instructions you can create a recovery disk for both Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (USB drive only).
If in the control panel you have selected the viewing type not by category, but by small or large icons, then click on the item “ Recovery"and you can go straight to point 5.
3. In the menu that opens, click the top link “ Help Center».
4. At the bottom of the “Support Center” window, click on the item “ Recovery».
6. Connect the flash drive to your computer. The system recovery disc will be written to it.
7. If desired, check the box next to “ Copy the recovery partition from your computer to the recovery drive» and press Next. This item is usually available on computers with pre-installed installed Windows 8. But it should be taken into account that when choosing this item, you will need several times more free space on the flash drive.
8. In the next window, select the USB drive from the list that you plan to use as a recovery drive and click the button Next.
If you don't have a flash drive, you can burn a recovery disc to CD/DVD media.
9. A warning will then appear stating that all data on the flash drive will be deleted. If there is no valuable information on your flash drive or you have made a backup copy, click the " Create».
That's all. The Windows 8 recovery disc creation process is complete. For a newly installed 64-bit version of Windows 8, the data size on the flash drive was 225 MB.
Hello friends! If you read various computer forums on the Internet, you can find one unsolvable problem. This problem will also not be solved for you in any computer service and they will offer to simply reinstall the operating system again. The problem is that Windows 7, 8.1, 10 have a built-in operating system backup tool, but in some cases this tool may not find the Windows backup image created (by itself) during recovery. As proof, I can give you my own article, written two years ago: “”, if you read the comments to it, you will understand everything, or maybe you yourself found yourself in a similar situation and did not find a way out of it.
Any user personal computer sooner or later decides to back up your operating system, I must say, this is very convenient, you install the operating system on your computer (on a new laptop it is already installed from the store), then install everything necessary programs, after that you create a backup image of Windows, if after a year the computer behaves unstable, you simply restore Windows from the backup and that’s it, now we come to the most important thing.
To create a backup copy of the operating system, many programs have been invented, both free and paid, for example: Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Professional, but many users prefer the operating system backup tool built into Windows, which can also be used to create a backup copy of the OS and place it on a regular hard drive or portable USB hard drive. But it’s not always possible to restore from this backup, and here’s why.
- Note: Friends, in today’s article I suggest using the Acronis program to solve this problem True Image Home 2014, but not all users have this program, so I wrote two more articles, in the first I use the built-in Windows utility utility, and in the second, utility.
The point is that the backup tool built into Windows is particularly capricious. If you created a backup with built-in Windows tool archiving, then it is not advisable to change the configuration after this hard drive(that is, divide it by additional sections, change drive letters, etc.), it is also undesirable to touch the portable USB hard drive on which the backup is located; in no case should you change the name of the folder ( WindowsImageBackup) in which the system archive is located or move it. Often these conditions are not met by users and when restoring they are greeted with the following message: “Windows cannot find the image on this computer.”
Accordingly, the user is faced with the question of how to restore the. Despite the apparent hopelessness of the situation, there is still a way out and this is what it is!
So, first, let's create a backup copy of the disk (C:) using the built-in archiving tool. Lenovo laptop G710 with UEFI BIOS and Windows 8.1 installed from the store.
Laptop disk management
In this window we see that in addition to the standard Disk 0 (1 TB capacity), the laptop is also connected to a portable USB hard drive, also 1 TB capacity, and it is on it (on partition I:) that we will save a backup copy of the operating system Windows systems 8.1 (Drive C:).
Let's launch remedy withbuildings backup copies files using file history.
Click on the button System image backup.
In this window the tool Windows archiving 8.1 suggests saving a system backup on a portable USB hard drive (section ( I:)).
The built-in archiving tool automatically includes the following sections in the backup backup:
1. Hidden encrypted (EFI) system partition (volume 260 MB) without a letter containing files Windows boot 8.1.
2. Disk (C:) with Windows 8.1 installed.
If you turn the scroll wheel down, you will see
that the backup will include another hidden partition without a letter, containing the Windows 8.1 recovery environment.
Note: In this screenshot we see three partitions of the laptop hard drive that will be included in the backup archive.
We also see the partition (I:) of the portable hard drive on which the archive will be saved.
In the “Confirm archiving parameters” window, we check whether we have configured everything correctly.
Click Archive and the archiving process will begin.
The process of creating a backup archive begins.
Archiving completed successfully.
After completing the archiving process, go to the portable USB hard drive, partition (I:) and see a folder with a newly created backup archive called WindowsImageBackup, this is it - Windows Backup Image.
Let's go to the archive WindowsImageBackup and find in it Backup folder, this folder contains three files with the VHDX extension, this format is used in various Microsoft virtualization solutions.
In simple words, a built-in backup tool, converted the drive (C:) with Windows 8.1 installed, as well as two hidden partitions, into virtual files hard drives VHD X.
The very first file VHD X contains the Windows 8.1 operating system, which can be determined by its large file size. The other two VHDX files contain respectively two hidden partitions, the first with the recovery environment, and the second with system boot files (Esp.vhdx). You can also connect any virtual disk to« Disk Management» and see its contents, not only that, you can even work with him.
Now let’s imagine a situation: half a year has passed and your laptop has stopped booting for some reason, you decide to restore your laptop from a previously created backup archive WindowsImageBackup using the built-in backup tool. We connected a portable USB hard drive to the laptop, then booted the laptop from the Windows 8.1 installation flash drive, entered the recovery environment, and selected in additional parameters« Restoring a system image» ,
and then you got this error
: "Windows can't find the image on this computer."»Friends, I want to tell you that there is no specific solution to this problem, and even if you remember that a month ago you transferred the folder with the WindowsImageBackup archive to another hard drive, and then put it back in its place, this will not help you. 99% of users in this case simply reinstall the operating system or return the laptop.
We will not reinstall Windows and will take the following steps.
We find another computer.
We connect our portable USB hard drive to it. Go to the folder WindowsImageBackup, find our virtual disk VHD X s Windows files 8.1.
We won’t touch the original, we copy the file to another folder and give it a different name, for example Windows 8.1.
In Disk Management select Action ->Attach a virtual hard disk.
Review.
Find our virtual disk Windows 8.1.vhdx, select it with the left mouse and click Open.
The virtual hard disk is attached in disk management and assigned a letter (H:).
Acronis True Image 2016
Getting started. Backup systems.
We uncheck all the boxes and mark only our connected virtual hard disk (H:).
At point Destination, Local storage, specify a portable USB hard drive to save the backup copy and press the button Archive.
Backup virtual disk VHDX in .TIB format of Acronis True Image 2016 is ready and located in the G:\My backups\Windows8_OS (H) folder on a portable USB hard drive.
In Acronis True Image 2016 we create .
I want to restore the (C:) drive of my laptop from the backup we created.
Note: For the purity of the experiment, before the recovery process, I will completely remove the disk (C:) with Windows 8.1 installed from the laptop, and then restore from our backup using a bootable flash drive with the programAcronis. Naturally, you don’t have to do this, unless suddenly someone wants to quickly remove Windows from their command line.
Connecting to laptop bootable USB flash drive with Windows 8.1 and boot the laptop from it
When the initial window appears Windows installations 8.1 I press the combination Shift+F10 and the command line opens.
I enter the commands:
diskpart
lis dis (this command displays a list of all connected drives)
seldis 0 (I select Disk 0, since this is the main hard drive of the laptop, we are guided by the disk capacity of 1 TB))
lis par (I display a list of all partitions on Disk 0, we see that the fifth partition is the drive (C:) with the Windows 8.1 operating system installed)
sel par 5 (select section 5)
del par override (delete section 5)
That's it, drive (C:) has been deleted.
Now the laptop boots with error 0xc0000034 because the drive (C:) has been deleted.
To check, I'll boot from the AOMEI PE Builder Live CD. We see instead of a disk (C:) unallocated space. The boot environment assigned a letter(C:) to another section, but there is practically nothing on it either.
We connect a portable USB hard drive to the laptop and boot the laptop from an Acronis True Image bootable UEFI flash drive
Choose Recovery. Discs.
Review. We need to find the backup we created; it is located on one of the sections of the portable hard drive. USB drive. Full path: G:\My backups\Windows8_OS (H), but since Acronis program True Image confuses drive letters in the boot environment, then the letter may not be G: but completely different.
Expanding the item Computer.
Let's go to Local disk(L:), its volume matches the partition of the portable USB hard drive on which the backup copy we created is located.
Go to the folder My backups.
Go to the Windows8_OS (H) folder.
Marking the partition for recovery Windows8_OS (H).
We do not check the MBR option, since the hard drive of our laptop has a GPT partition style and the UEFI interface is enabled in the BIOS.
Click on the button New storage.
Mark the unallocated space 449.6 GB with the left mouse and click Accept.
Get started.
The process of restoring the laptop from the backup we created begins.
We reboot the laptop and the error comes out again, which meanswe restore the flown one Windows boot loader 8.1.
Restoring the Windows 8.1 bootloader
I connect a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 8.1 to the laptop and boot the laptop from it.
When the initial Windows 8.1 installation window appears, I press the combination Shift+F10 and the command line opens.
I enter the commands:
diskpart
list vol (this command displays a list of all partitions. We see that the partition with the Windows 8.1 operating system is assigned the letter C:)
exit (exit diskpart)
We enter a command that will completely overwrite the contents of the laptop's Windows 8.1 boot storage.
bcdboot.exe C:\Windows
The download files have been successfully created!
We reboot the laptop and finally Windows 8.1 loads!
Windows 8 and 8.1 operating systems allow you to create a bootable recovery disk regular means. It is a regular USB flash drive that boots into the Windows recovery environment (that is, limited mode diagnostics), which allows you to repair startup, file system or fix other problems that are causing operating system does not load or works with noticeable problems.
A boot disk for Windows OS is useful because with its help you can run system recovery, update the system and reset your computer to its original working parameters.
It should be noted, however, that the disc or media cannot be used to install Windows. At the same time, the boot disk is very similar to the one used to restore Windows 7.
A recovery disk (USB version) or a system recovery disk (for CD/DVD version, available only in Windows 8) is intended for those who do not have an official boot disk Windows 8/8.1.
I strongly recommend that you create a disk or flash drive to restore the system before you get into an unpleasant situation - if you cannot start Windows 8 or 8.1, you can easily and playfully return the OS to a working state using the prepared kit.
Keep in mind that the 32-bit (x86) recovery disc can be used to repair the 32-bit version of Windows 8/8.1. Accordingly, the 64-bit (x64) edition of the recovery disk only works with 64-bit Windows 8/8.1.
The good news: you can repair any edition of Microsoft Windows 8/8.1 from this disk, as long as it is designed for the same hardware architecture (32-bit or 64-bit). One last note: do not try to use the Windows 8.1 recovery disk to resuscitate Windows 8 and vice versa!
Requirements for creating a Windows 8/8.1 boot disk or system recovery disk
First, make sure you have a blank CD/DVD (this is only required for Windows environment 8) or USB disk with a minimum size of 256 MB (megabytes) of the total disk space. Many OEM computers have highly customized recovery partitions—they can require up to 32 gigabytes of disk space on the recovery drive.
CD or DVD disc in Windows 8 must be truly empty, because the program will not be able to write data to rewritable media. You can erase the contents of a CD or DVD by opening My Computer (Windows key + E), right-clicking on the CD/DVD drive logo in the list and selecting "Erase this disc".
The USB drive can be a simple portable flash drive or hard drive with a similar USB interface. Please note that this hard drive will be formatted and you will lose all the files on it. Therefore, it would not be a bad idea to do backup of all important files! Be careful. If you delete valuable files, you will have to restore them (about resuscitating a flash drive to a website).
After creating the recovery disk, you need to make sure that your computer is able to boot normally. Some older USB flash drives do not support booting. Also be sure to check your computer's boot order in the BIOS to make sure booting from USB devices is enabled and listed before booting hard drives.
If your computer is equipped USB interfaces 2.0 and USB 3.0 or later, connect the recovery disk to the USB 2.0 port - this may solve some problems with booting the system.
Creating a bootable USB flash drive to restore Windows
To start creating a bootable disk, open the search settings using the Windows key + W and enter "Recovery" in the search box. Click on "Create a recovery disk".
As expected, the User Account Control window appears. Click "Yes" to make sure you know what you're doing.
The “Create a recovery disk” window will appear in front of you. First, check the box next to “Copy the contents of the recovery partition to disk.” Then connect the USB drive, wait about 10 seconds and click Next.
If you cannot enable the "Copy the contents of the recovery partition to the recovery disk" option when creating a recovery disk in Windows 8 or 8.1, you need to copy the Windows installer instll.wim to your hard drive or SSD drive. Please note that this will increase the default recovery disk space requirement from 256 megabytes to 4 gigabytes respectively.
If, when creating a Windows recovery disk, the message "We cannot create a recovery disk on this computer. Some required files are missing" appears, the winre.wim file or system reserved section missing.
Select the correct drive letter from the list, select the USB flash drive in the window. Then click the "Next" button.
Windows will warn you that all contents of the selected drive will be erased. To continue, click the "Create" button.
The process of formatting the drive and copying files may take several minutes, depending on the speed of your USB drive. Once the disc is ready, click the "Done" button.
Completing the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows 8
Now check that your device is indeed capable of booting from the recovery disk: some older USB drives do not support booting. In this case, make a newer recovery disk on the flash drive and retest the drive for bootability. Now open the flash drive in any file manager and make sure the content matches what you see in the screenshot below:
Creating an "old school" bootable CD/DVD for system recovery in Windows 8
If you want to create a bootable system recovery CD or DVD (this is only possible in Windows 8), search for Windows key settings+W, type "recovery" and click "File recovery in Windows 7" (yes, that's a thing) glitch, in fact the option has that name).
If you can't find the item you're looking for, open a command prompt window (use Windows keys+X), type sdclt.exe and press Enter to run the program.
On the left side of the Microsoft Windows 7 File Recovery window, click the “Create a system repair disc” button.
The “Create a system repair disc” window will open. Select the desired successor and click the "Create Disk" button.
If you insert a non-blank CD or DVD, you will see an error dialog like this: "The system repair disc was not created, there is no media in the device (0xC0AA0202)." Click OK, insert a blank disc and the burning process will start automatically.
Right-click on your CD or DVD drive and select the "Erase this drive" option.
It may take several minutes to create a system repair disc. After the process is complete, specify the name of the disk and click the “Close” button.
Resume. I hope that this instruction helped you create a bootable USB flash drive to restore Microsoft Windows 8. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments, I will definitely answer them (see below).
Answers to readers' questions
After restoring Windows 8, files and some programs disappeared. How to return/restore them?
Answer. You must understand that windows recovery 8 from a disk or other media assumes that everything installed programs will be removed and will need to be reinstalled. However, if you installed Windows on a different drive, you can go to the user folder (Users - [username]) on the system drive used by the previous OS. In the Application Data subdirectory, look for user files with application configuration files; they can be copied to the user’s current folder. That's just actually Windows applications you will need to install from the installation files.
If you installed Windows 8 on system disk default and overwritten old version OS, look for the Windows.old folder. It stores copies of previously installed programs.
Laptop crashes after uninstall Windows 8. Before this there was also no archiving. And now, having returned some things, I can’t find some files: the office program, my notes, etc. The update center does not work. It is impossible to find deleted files, the default is everywhere. How to restore windows 8 to normal like before?
Answer. It looks like you used a restore point a few days ago. However, the question is formulated in such a way that it is not clear what you wanted to ask. Let's try to answer point by point.
1. Office suite The easiest way to install is by downloading the installation package on the developer’s website.
2. Work of the center Windows updates 8 Depends on the Windows Update service. Start - Run - services.msc. Find the specified service, switch to the “Automatic” state, and reboot the system.
3. For recovery deleted files use specialized programs, we have written about them many times.
If I restore the system via a USB flash drive (on Windows 8), will the system be restored to factory settings or to the time the recovery disk was created?
Answer. Windows Recording 8 on a flash drive is just convenient opportunity reinstallation without using a disk drive.
You can write Windows 8 onto a USB flash drive and reinstall it from scratch, but you will need to configure, install programs, etc. again. If you use Windows restore points, you return to the state in which the OS was recorded at the time this point was created.
Windows 8 has a fairly rich arsenal of recovery tools. First of all, this is the Refresh Your PC mode, the launch of which allows you to restore the operating system from a recovery disk without deleting user files. Along with this “soft” form of bringing the OS configuration into working condition, the G8 implements a means of completely reinstalling it and deleting all data on the disk (Reset Your PC).
Variety of recovery tools
The developers have provided users with several methods at once, by resorting to which they can restore the Windows 8 system. Some of them are familiar from the previous ones Windows versions, some are unique and are absent even in the new “top ten”. Let's list all the available options:
Below we will describe in detail how to restore Windows 8, the advantages and disadvantages of each of the described methods.
Update without deleting files
Not everyone knows that this option works in two modes:
- saving the user's personal files, Metro applications and deleting all desktop applications and registry settings;
- returning the system to a custom image, preserving all programs and settings installed at the time of its creation, with all drivers, etc.
The first mode will have no alternative if the user installed Windows 8 independently from a disk and did not create wim images of the system for subsequent rollback.
But when purchasing a device with the eighth installed by the manufacturer Windows version When performing the Refresh Your PC function, a hidden factory disk partition with a specific set of drivers and programs that were originally installed on the computer will be used.
To be able to “softly” restore Windows 8 to a fully working system configuration without errors, viruses, etc., after installing the system, drivers and the most necessary applications, you need to make your own wim image. Moreover, it will be possible to replace the standard one used by default.
How to make a wim image
To edit and create images in the G8, the recimg console program is provided. We will use it as follows:
- Open a command prompt as an administrator by pressing Win+X and select the appropriate item in the console window that opens.
- On the command line you need to write recimg/CreateImage C:\Image\Img1 (without the dot).
The program will create an image of the current state on the disk, which will become the base image when the system is rolled back without deleting files.
You can create more than one image; the user can choose how many of them to create:
- recimg/CreateImage C:\Images\Img2 will create another recovery image and assign it as the base one;
- recimg/SetCurrent C:\Image\Img1 will make Img1 the default again;
- recimg /ShowCurrent will show which image is in present moment base;
- recimg/deregister will override all custom images and make the default system image the default one.
The Wim image does not contain user data, so it is not suitable as a full backup copy. However, when you roll back, Refresh mode (system recovery in Windows 8 while saving user data) will allow the OS to save all your programs, files and registry data that were current at the time the image was created.
What remains after the rollback
Rollback with data preservation, as previously described, can be carried out through a saved image or without it. This will affect the system as follows:
- in both cases, documents and personal files, design and Metro applications will remain unchanged;
- when using the image, desktop applications of the Program Files folder, updates and everything will also be saved system settings.
The only thing that will not be saved is most personal settings (desktop, etc.) and application settings (Internet browser profile, saved program panels, etc.).
How to run Refresh Your PC procedure
Restoring Windows 8 using this procedure can be done in almost any state, even when you can only enter it from the boot disk. But if Windows 8 boots normally, the rollback process comes down to several steps:
- press Win+R and in the input field of the window that opens, write the command systemreset (without a comma),
- Confirm your entry by clicking “Run”.
Changing BIOS settings
But if redirection does not occur, the boot is carried out from a recovery or installation disk. Before doing this, do not forget to go into BIOS mode and check that the priorities are set correctly so that the boot or installation drives are read first.
To enter the BIOS, you need to immediately press Del on the keyboard several times as soon as the device reboots; on some laptops, entry occurs via F2 or ESC. BIOS versions on different devices vary. This could be Award, AMI, graphical UEFI - everywhere the method of specifying the disk first in the boot queue is different. However, you can boot from a flash drive without entering the BIOS. To display the window for selecting a boot method without changing the BIOS settings, just press the following keys while starting the device:
- Award BIOS - F9;
- AMI - F8.
On laptops, this tool is usually invoked by pressing F12.
Enter the recovery environment
Follow these steps:
- When booting from installation disk after selecting the language, click on the link below “System Restore”;
- Go to the diagnostics section;
- Select the "Restore" command.
After completing the procedure, any of your programs and all system settings will remain in place (except for some personal settings), but only if you managed to create a wim image using the method described above. Otherwise, a clean system will be installed in which only photos, music and similar data will be saved.
The difference between an update that saves data and a reinstallation of the OS over the existing one
Reinstalling the system is usually resorted to only when there are no backup copies in order to restore Windows 8 via Refresh Your PC. But one more condition must be met - the system must boot on its own.
This is precisely the advantage and the main difference between a rollback with saving data and a reinstallation - the new mode of returning the working configuration of the system in the “eight” is capable of bringing it back to life even in the event of the most severe failure, while at the same time preserving at least the user’s personal data.
Another important feature is that Refresh Your PC does not last long, the process is completely automated. You do not need to go through any of the initial steps of the classic method of reinstalling from disk, nor do you need to configure settings after the installation is complete.
Recover without saving data
In English-language versions of Windows 8, this mode is called Reset Your PC and acts “hard” - it formats the system partition, and any other partition, and then completely reinstalls the system. No data, system or user settings are saved. The Reset Your PC mode is available there - in the diagnostics section, which can be accessed both from a running system and from a recovery or installation disk.
With a version of Windows 8 preinstalled on your computer or laptop, everything is even simpler. You just need to read the specifications for the device in order to find out how to roll back the Windows 8 system by pressing a certain key combination to the factory settings. It varies on different machines, but this is the fastest existing way to “hard” roll back to almost zero a system completely damaged by a virus or inept user actions.
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