How To Take A Full Backup of Windows 10 On An External Hard Drive

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How to Take a Full Backup of Windows 10 on an External

Hard Drive
March 15, 2021 by Karim Buzdar
We will use the Image Backup feature in Windows 10 to create a complete backup of your system,
including the operating system, settings, applications, and your personal files. I will show you in this
guide how to do a backup to hard drive in Windows 10 using Windows's own tools, so there is no
need for any additional software.
The main advantage of this feature is that it can be used to restore a complete system in case of a
software or hardware failure. The disadvantage is that you cannot use it to restore individual files.
With this tutorial, you can create a complete backup image on Windows 10.
1 of 13 8/12/2021, 11:21 PM
Taking a Full Backup of a Windows 10 PC on an External Hard Drive

Step 1: Type 'Control Panel' in the search bar and then press <enter>.
Step 2: In System and Security, click "Save backup copies of your files with File History".
Step 3: Click on "System Image Backup" in the bottom left corner of the window.
Step 4: Click on the button "Create a system image".
Step 5: Choose your hard drive and click Next.
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Step 6: Click "Start backup" to start the backup process.
The backup wizard takes from 10 minutes to several hours. This depends on the amount of data that
needs to be backed up. It also depends on the speed of the hard disk.
By following this guide, you created an easy to restore full-backup of your Windows PC in 6 steps.
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Windows, Windows 10, Windows 8

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18 thoughts on “How to Take a Full Backup of Windows 10 on an External Hard Drive”
keith
March 17, 2018 at 10:38 pm
windows 10 made a backup using image to my external hard drive. I cannot figure out how
to access my photos etc because there is only a string of numbers and dates when i click on
the hard drive,c,users, my name, etc. i have a lot of photos on my segate that they said i need
to get in touch with microsoft to figure out how to understand how it is backed up.
Reply
Liaqat Khan
September 28, 2019 at 10:02 am
Very nice tutorial it helped me to take back up of my window 10
Reply
Adam Stinziani
October 5, 2019 at 7:57 pm
I understand your confusion! Unfortunately this is a common format among some backup
software (Windows, Western Digital) I think it’s Windows fault as I have seen backups of
macs basically duplicating the file system! To answer your question in any situation the
easiest way to access your backed up files is through the way you backed them up. If you
used this tutorial then hopefully your backup should appear in the restore section of back
4 of 13 8/12/2021, 11:21 PM
up or restore in control panel if you ever lose your original files.

BACKING UP PHOTOS:
I highly recommend using Google Photos (I’m sure iCloud also has a nice download
feature) as you can download your photos whenever you want, and even change settings to
Automatically backup your photos! Not only this but the format is easily accessible when
downloading ALBUMS from Google Photos. Sorry this was so long winded but I hope it
helps!!!
Reply
Paul
December 20, 2019 at 3:12 pm
You need to give your saved photos a NAME if you don’t it allocates a number Say you
have 20 odd photos all of a holiday in Spain Put all 20 on a folder Title the folder Spain
2019 (or whatever Another folder may be (dads birthday) This way they can still have
numbers BUT you know what’s what and where it is.
IF you ever accidentally DELETE all your photos and you have a google account Everything
is in this account automatically IF YOU DON’T gave an account Here is a tip ,,,, Click MY
COMPUTER then top right in the small search box type *.jpj that is star dot JPG just wait
and watch EVERY single photo and image that your PC has ever seen will be recovered to
save again to an new folder… Enjoy Paul
Reply
IP
March 18, 2020 at 2:47 am
5 of 13 8/12/2021, 11:21 PM
You can restore individual files from System image.

click on search -> type Disk Management
click Action -> select Attach VHD -> browse through your USB drive where the system
image is saved and select the WindowsImageBackup file
the system image will be mounted as a another drive letter, you can browse the files that
you want to restore and copy it to your existing drive or whichever location you want.
Reply
Carolyn Phillips
October 25, 2018 at 12:18 am
I can do all these steps but the message I get is that there is not enough room on the
external hard drive. Well, I want it to OVERWRITE the old info with the new! This is a new
problem — I have not had this issue before and I have made many backups onto this same
external drive. I cannot seem to find a way to tell the laptop to do this. Any suggestions
welcome. Thank you.
Reply
Bri
November 19, 2018 at 9:12 am
This method also seems to duplicate my e drive aswell.I only the operating system back
up,my e drive contains mostly my games,music,photo’s,videos etc.Is it possible I can just
back up the c drive?.
Reply
6 of 13 8/12/2021, 11:21 PM
Béret
November 27, 2018 at 4:31 pm
All I’ll say is Macrium Reflect.
Makes a bootable clone of my C drive once a day. In addition, it does this whilst I’m working
on the PC.
If I have a hdd failure I not only have a bootable drive instantly, I also have everything save
the last 24 hours (at worst) work. If there’s a better way to have peace of mind, I haven’t
found it.
Reply
Timmy Burke
December 23, 2018 at 4:48 am
Thank you so much! Worked perfectly
Reply
David Balažic
August 15, 2019 at 3:14 pm
You forgot the most important step: How to restore from it?
Reply
Bill Craig
December 26, 2019 at 10:16 pm
7 of 13 8/12/2021, 11:21 PM
Did you figure it out and do you have a link?
Reply
David Balažic
August 15, 2019 at 3:20 pm
“The drawback is that you can not use it to restore individual files.”
This is wrong. The backup is in a form of a (one or more) VHDX file, that can be opened with
a single click (OK, double-click, depending on system settings) and each individual file can be
viewed, opened, copied back or … restored.
Reply
jeffrey
October 15, 2019 at 3:04 am
Thank you!!
I couldn’t figure this out on the Microsoft website.
Reply
Charles David
November 26, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Please i tried backup my windows 7 the same way on “create a system image”, but the hard
disk is not showing up. I only see refresh.
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Reply
Jeff
January 11, 2020 at 12:41 am
This doesn’t work. I don’t have System and Security. I used Backup and Restore (Windows 7)
in control panel. Then step 4 came up. Create system image, and computer found external
drive. So I selected that and was able to create an image of hard drive.
Reply
Franko Rahimi
March 15, 2020 at 12:31 am
Do I need to dedicate an entire external USB HDD for the image of my computer?
I do not need access to individual files. Those are all backed up on DropBox, Carbonite, etc.
Once I have the image on a external USB HDD, how do I restore it? Suppose, my computer
gets thrown in a river and I can’t get it anymore. I want to be able to go and buy ax exact
model (as exact as I can) and restore my whole computer. How do I restore?
Reply
Lissy
January 12, 2021 at 6:10 pm
9 of 13 8/12/2021, 11:21 PM
Hi!
Let say that I save my system backup in disk E: and disk E: also contains a lot of files (no
system files! ) Does a system backup erase everything in disk E: or does it just make a file
with numbers and act the same way like the other files on disk E: ?
Reply
Joey OReilly
April 13, 2021 at 5:17 am
I bought a WD External HDD. The Backup in Windows 10 does NOTHING. I went to Win 7
back up. It backed up my library, but only got to 91% of my system Image. I cannot backup a
system image. I’ve tried 4 times already. Hours of waiting for nothing. I had a Toshiba that
backed up Windows 10. A complete backup. After the latest update, it won’t work anymore.
Can somebody tell me how to get a system image on WD Passport 1TB? This is getting way
too hard to do. My laptop won’t update because the battery doesn’t reach 40% capacity.
Looks like the bottom line is $$$$$$$
Reply
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How to Take a Full Backup of Windows 10 on an External Hard Drive https://www.faqforge.com/windows/windows-10/take-full-backup-wind...

How to Take a Full Backup of Windows 10 on an External

Taking a Full Backup of a Windows 10 PC on an External Hard Drive

Step 4: Click on the button "Create a system image".

Step 5: Choose your hard drive and click Next.

Step 6: Click "Start backup" to start the backup process.

Windows, Windows 10, Windows 8

18 thoughts on “How to Take a Full Backup of Windows 10 on an External Hard Drive”

Very nice tutorial it helped me to take back up of my window 10

up or restore in control panel if you ever lose your original files.

You can restore individual files from System image.

All I’ll say is Macrium Reflect.

Thank you so much! Worked perfectly

Did you figure it out and do you have a link?

Windows 10 System Image Recovery

© 2021 FAQforge • Built with GeneratePress

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