The newly installed Windows operating system cannot but please the eye. Pristinely clean, without any processes slowing down the computer, unnecessary software and a bunch of games. Experts recommend routinely reinstalling the OS every 6–10 months for preventive purposes and to cleanse excess information. And for a successful reinstallation you need a high-quality disk image of the system.

In what cases may you need a Windows 10 system image?

The main reasons for the urgent need for an OS image are, of course, reinstalling or restoring the system after damage.

The cause of damage may be broken files on hard drive sectors, viruses and/or incorrect installed updates. Often the system can recover on its own if none of the critical libraries were damaged. But once the damage affects the bootloader files or other important and executable files, the OS may well stop functioning. In such cases, it is simply impossible to do without external media (installation disk or flash drive).

It is recommended to have several permanent media with a Windows image at once. Anything can happen: disk drives often scratch disks, and flash drives themselves are fragile devices. In the end, everything falls into disrepair. And the image should be updated periodically in order to save time downloading updates from Microsoft servers and immediately have it in your arsenal latest drivers for equipment. This mainly concerns a clean OS installation, of course.

Burning an image to a disk or flash drive

Let's say you have an image Windows disk 10, assembled or downloaded from the official Microsoft website, but it is of little use as long as it just sits on the hard drive. It must be written correctly using standard or third party program, because the image file itself is of no value to the bootloader's attempt to read it.

It is important to consider the choice of media. Usually a standard DVD blank with a stated 4.7 GB of memory or a USB flash drive with a capacity of 8 GB is sufficient, since the weight of the image often exceeds 4 GB.

It is also advisable to clear the flash drive of all contents in advance, or even better, format it. Although almost all recording programs format removable media before recording an image on it.

Creating an image using the installer

Nowadays, special services have been created for obtaining images operating system. The license is no longer tied to a separate disk, which can become unusable for various reasons, or its box. Everything goes into electronic view, which is much safer than the physical ability to store information. With the release of Windows 10, the license has become safer and more mobile. It can be used on several computers or phones at once.

Download Windows image you can use different torrent resources or using the Media Creation Tool program recommended by Microsoft developers. This small utility for burning a Windows image to a flash drive can be found on the company’s official website.

1. Download the installer.
2. Launch the program, select “Create installation media for another computer” and click “Next”.

   Select to create installation media for another computer

3. Select the system language, edition (choose between Pro and Home versions), as well as 32 or 64 bits, again “Next”.

   Define boot image options

4. Specify the media where you want to save the Windows boot. Either directly to a flash drive, creating a bootable USB drive, or as an ISO image to a computer and then use it:
   
5. Wait until the process you have chosen finishes, after which you will be able to use the downloaded product at your discretion.

   After the process is complete, the image or bootable flash drive will be ready to use

While the program is running, Internet traffic of 3 to 7 GB is used.

Video: How to Create a Windows 10 ISO Using the Media Creation Tool

Creating an image using third-party programs

Oddly enough, but OS users still choose additional programs for working with disk images. Often due to more user-friendly interface or the functionality of such applications is superior to standard utilities offered by Windows.

Daemon Tools

Daemon Tools is a well-deserved leader in the software market. According to statistics, about 80% of all users who work with disk images use it. To create a disk image using Daemon Tools, do the following:

Daemon Tools also allows you to create a bootable USB drive:

Video: how to burn a system image to disk using Daemon Tools

Alcohol 120%

The Alcohol 120% program is an old-timer in the field of creating and burning disk images, but still has minor shortcomings. For example, it does not write images to a flash drive.

Video: how to burn a system image to disk using Alcohol 120%

Nero Express

Almost all Nero products are designed to work with disks in general. Unfortunately, not much attention is paid to images, but simple disc burning from an image is present.

1. Open Nero Express, hover your mouse over “Image, Project, Copier.” and select “Disk image or saved project” from the drop-down menu.

   Click on the item “Disk image or saved project”

2. Select the disk image by clicking the required file, and click the "Open" button.

   Open the Windows 10 image file

3. Click “Burn” and wait until the disc is burned. Don't forget to check if your boot DVD is working properly.

   The “Burn” button starts the process of burning the installation disc

Unfortunately, Nero still does not write images to flash drives.

Video: How to Burn a System Image Using Nero Express

Ultra ISO

UltraISO is an old, small, but very powerful tool for working with disk images. Can record to both disks and flash drives.

1. Open the UltraISO program.
2. To burn an image to a flash drive, select the required disk image file at the bottom of the program and double-click on it to mount it in virtual drive programs.

   In the directories at the bottom of the program, select and mount the image

3. At the top of the program, click on “Boot” and select the item “Burn image hard drive».

   The item “Burn hard disk image” is located in the “Boot” tab

4. Select the required USB storage device that is suitable in size and change the recording method to USB-HDD+ if necessary. Click the "Burn" button and confirm formatting the flash drive if the program prompts you to do so.

   The “Burn” button will start the process of formatting the flash drive and then creating an installation flash drive

5. Wait for the recording to finish and check the flash drive for compliance and functionality.

Burning boot disks with UltraISO follows a similar pattern:

Video: how to burn an image to a flash drive using the UltraISO program

What problems may arise while creating an ISO disk image?

By and large, problems should not arise during image recording. Only cosmetic problems are possible if the media itself is of poor quality or damaged. Or perhaps there are power problems during recording, such as a power outage. In this case, the flash drive will have to be formatted anew and the recording chain will be repeated, and the disk will, alas, become unusable: it will have to be replaced with a new one.

As for creating an image through the Media Creation Tool utility, problems may well arise: the developers did not particularly care about deciphering errors if they arise. Therefore, we have to navigate the problem at random.

If the download does not start and freezes at 0%

If the download does not even start and the process freezes at the very beginning, the problems can be both external and internal:

• Microsoft servers are blocked antivirus programs or provider. There may be a simple lack of connection to the Internet. In this case, check which connections are blocked by your antivirus and the connection to Microsoft servers;
• there is not enough space to save the image, or you have downloaded a fake duplicate program. In this case, the utility must be downloaded from another source, and disk space must be freed up. Moreover, it is worth considering that the program first downloads the data and then creates the image, so the space needed is approximately twice as much as stated in the image.

If the download freezes at the percentage, or the image file is not created after downloading

When the download freezes while downloading an image, or the image file is not created, the problem is (most likely) related to the operation of your hard drive.

In the case when a program tries to write information to bad sector hard drive, the OS itself can reset the entire installation or boot process. In this case, you need to determine the reason why the hard drive sectors have become unusable by the Windows system.

First of all, check the system for viruses with two or three anti-virus programs. Then check and disinfect the hard drive.

Video: how to check your hard drive for errors and fix them

Create installation disk from the image is very simple. Every Windows user should have this kind of media on a permanent basis.

To restore the operating system after problems with any parameters, you should seek help from a system image on a flash drive or disk, having first created it.

Using an OS image, you can reinstall everything from scratch. It is also possible to correct errors when starting the operating system or clean your PC of unnecessary and unnecessary programs. Main reasons to use:

• OS reinstallation;
• restoring the OS in case of problems.

You can create an image if you use programs such as:

• archiving wizard;
• installer;
• third-party: Nero Express, etc.

We are working on creating a Windows 10 image

We prepare the necessary tools for this process. You may need things like:

• SSD disk (external);
• USB drives;
• DVDs.

Creating an image using the Archive Wizard

Step-by-step instruction:

There are some options for the location of the Windows image:

• hard disks. There are 3 options for storing your image: 1) SSD drive (external); 2) internal additional HDD; 3) one of the disk partitions that you are archiving. The most reliable is the first option. If the archive is stored internally on a disk, then if the hard drive fails, the archive will be lost;
• This option is not reliable, but still many prefer to choose it;
• network folder. If you consider yourself an experienced PC user, then you can safely choose this option. To do this, you need a network connection and you must know the parameters for accessing the resource.

Windows image storage location

You can see the location of your archive files, as well as find out the space it occupies.

A visual view of storing an image of your system:

An example of the location of the image can be seen in the screenshot.

To find out the size of the archive, right-click on the folder and go to “Properties”.

Using the installation program

To download the image, you can go to the official website or any other Internet resources.

We use third-party snails

remember, that this entry to optical DVDs is gradually losing its relevance. After all, netbooks, ultrabooks and tablets do not have a disk drive. We recommend sticking to recording on an SSD drive or flash card.

Pre-install the necessary program and then proceed to recording the operating system image.

Daemon Tools

This product is the most popular on the software market. We create a system image on disk by performing the following steps:

Making a USB drive as a system image.

We check the functionality of the bootable flash drive.

Alcohol 120%

This program has been in effect for many years, there is a huge disadvantage here - it only works with disks (optical media), so you won’t be able to make a flash drive with bootable media.

We begin the process by performing the following steps:

Upon completion, we check the functionality of the disk.

Note! Also, the Alcohol 52% program has the right to exist, but its functions are even more limited; it can only record an image on virtual disk. Starting the system properly with these actions does nothing.

Modern analogues will provide you with a more necessary service.

NERO

With this program, you will again be able to record only to external DVDs, but not to a flash drive.

The average process time is 30-40 minutes, it can reach an hour (depending on the selected speed). Upon completion, we check the functionality.

Nero Express

We wait for the end of the installation process and check the functionality of the disk.

Note! Unfortunately, Nero doesn't have a version that can work with flash drives, so this program is not as effective.

ULTRAISO

This old tool is the most powerful for the job. With its help, you can store a disk image on flash drives and on various disks.

Making bootable media from a flash drive

We are waiting for completion, checking for functionality.

The boot disk is created in the same way.

1. Select the desired file.
2. In point top menu“Tools” select “Burn image to DVDCD”.
3. Let's start "Recording". We are waiting for the program to finish.

Other applications that may be useful

• Universal_USB_Installer;
• Win_Setup_FromUSB;
• BOOTLER;
• RUFUS;
• XBOOT;
• SARDU;
• Win2_USB Free, etc.

Possible problems

If you follow everything according to the instructions, there should be no problems. However, consider possible options:

: if the process hangs from the very beginning, then you need to check the Internet connection and the antivirus blocking; perhaps it is blocking the service. Also check the storage capacity (there may not be enough space);

the process hangs in certain moment : In this case, there is a high probability that you have a problem with the hard drive. In this situation, you can make several attempts to correct this situation.

• disk or flash drive does not work: replace the image and rewrite the installation disk again;
• Lost connection to the drive: Let's try to clean the disk and start the installation again. There are situations when the only solution is to replace the disk.

In fact, burning a system image to disk is not such a difficult task, so problems are encountered very rarely.

Restoring Windows 10 from a backup

To restore the system you need to open the recovery menu.

When there are problems, but the system can still boot:

Image Windows systems 10 is an exact copy of one or more disks (partitions) of the computer, and can be used for recovery in case of problems with the hard drive or system.

By default, the image includes only the sections needed to boot and Windows operation, but if you wish, you can add other computer disks with information important to you.

When restoring a system using an image, the information on the disks is completely replaced, and its relevance will correspond to the time the image was created. Those. you cannot restore individual documents, programs, drivers, etc., only a disk backup fully.

Now let's look at this process point by point.

Creating a Windows 10 image

1. Open the control panel. To do this, right-click on the menu “ Start» and select the appropriate item.

5. In the menu on the left, launch the “”.

7. Select a location to save your archive and click the " Further».

There is several options for positioning the system image :

• On hard drive. This means that the archive will be saved on an external hard drive, an internal additional hard drive, or on one of the partitions of the archived disk. The first option is the most reliable and preferable, because if the hard drive on which the Windows backup the archive will also be lost. And if you select a partition of the current disk, the system will issue a corresponding warning. This message is not shown in the image below because... a separate hard drive is selected.
• OnDVD-disks. This option is for rarity lovers. Not convenient, not reliable, but also has the right to life.
• In a network folder. This method is for experienced users. To use it, your computer must be properly configured network connection and you need to know the parameters to access the network resource.

8. In the next step, you can select the disks for archiving. After that, in the confirmation window for archiving parameters, click the button “ Archive" The approximate volume that will be required to create will also be indicated here. backup copy.

10. Once the process is complete, you will be prompted. If you don't have one yet, take advantage of this opportunity or you can record it later.

Where is the system image stored?

If you are interested, you can see the location of the archive files and the volume they occupy. The system image is saved on the previously specified media in the following format:

Drive letter:\WindowsImageBackup\ Computer name\Backup year-month-date hours minutes seconds

For example, for the archive created for writing this article, the image location is as follows:

E:\WindowsImageBackup\site\Backup 2016-02-03 065439

You can also see how much space the image takes up.

Features of creating an image

Finally, here are a few nuances that need to be taken into account when recording a Windows 10 system image:

• Only disks formatted in the file system can be included in the archive NTFS.
• You cannot include in the image the disk partition on which the archive is saved.
• You can't restore 64-bit image on 32-bit system.
• If you save an archive to a network resource, only latest version data. When creating a new image, the old one will be overwritten.
• An image created on a computer with UEFI, cannot be restored on a computer with classic BIOS.

Good afternoon friends. In one of the previous articles, we looked at how to perform a system rollback using the program. Now we will look at how to create a Windows 10 system recovery image on a flash drive and external hard drive using the utilities of this operating system. The advantage of this method is that there is no need to spend money on buying new software, since the system method is free.

This program is configured so that only folders and files on system drive C will be copied. However, you can configure the program so that other PC drives that you want to save will be added to the copy area. When you roll back, programs and files will be restored in the form in which they were at the time of copying. Also, you can only copy the entire disk, and not individual files.

Creating a Windows 10 system image

Enter the phrase “Control Panel” into the search bar. Click on the found file.

"File History" command.

In the window that opens, select “System image backup.”

Then select “Create a system image”.

Windows starts looking for a place on GR for our backup. I advise you to choose a storage space on a flash card with a size of 32 GB or more. You can also choose an external hard drive or another physical hard drive to record the system.

Why on a flash drive or another disk? Because if all the data on your drive on which Windows 10 is installed disappears, or the drive fails, the system can be restored from another drive.

If you install data on the disk where your system is located, but in a different partition, you will receive a warning about this next to a yellow triangle. If you do not have a flash drive with a capacity of 32 GB or more, the system can be installed on the system hard drive (just not on the system partition of this hard drive).

In this case, you can roll back the entire system if everything is fine with the hard drive and the computer can be started. You can also perform a system rollback if Windows is heavily cluttered with all sorts of system junk.

Let's say you select a flash drive, then the system will issue a warning.

In this case, we need to format the flash card in NTFS format. To do this, select your flash drive in “Explorer”, then, in the context menu “Format”.

On the menu " File system"Select NTFS and click "Start". Our flash drive will be formatted in the format required to create a Windows image.

Let's return to archiving. We see that the system has determined the disk from which information will be copied and the approximate amount of data. In my case, it's 11 GB. Click “Archive”.

We are starting archiving. On my computer it lasted 30 minutes. You may have more. It depends on how much information you have.

Now a folder will appear on the disk that you assigned to store the system image WindowsImageBackup. Do not rename it under any circumstances.

If you copied not to a flash drive, but to system disk, the program will prompt you to create.

How to run a system rollback

When the system is running

If your system is working, go to settings via Start, then click on the “Update and Security” shortcut,

In addition, to enter “Advanced options” you can simply press Shift and “Restart computer”.

After reboot, click on “Troubleshooting”

After recovery, the program will ask you to restart your computer.

When the system is not working

We start the computer by connecting the flash drive (don’t forget to check the “Run from flash drive” item in the BIOS). Next, we go through the path as if the system was running.

As you can see, creating an OS image is quite simple. Let me remind you that it needs to be done after Windows reinstallation and preferably once every two/three months (more often if possible). Good luck!

Today it is not so difficult to find an image of the “ten” on one of the many sites and torrent trackers, however, in most cases, instead of a clean system you will get a rather strange “SOMETHING”, filled with unnecessary software, third-rate drivers and a bunch of “whistles” which only slow down the OS and make it appearance, let's say, miserable. Also, as a bonus, there may also be malware, such as viruses and Trojans. In a word, it’s time to start figuring out: how to create one that will contain a clean system, without unnecessary nasties?

Where to get it?

For regular readers of our site, it will not be a surprise that you can upgrade to Windows 10 manually - the Media Creation Tool application is successfully used for this, however, few people know that using the same application you can create bootable media, as well as ISO -images of the system. You don't have to download for this. additional tools or make changes to the system - just carefully follow the instructions that appear on the screen while the application is running. So let's get started:

1. Download and launch Media Creation Tool;
2. In the first step, select “Create installation media for another PC”;

1. Specify the parameters of the ISO image you want to create - language, edition, and bit depth (32 or 64 bits);

1. Finally, in the last step, select the location where you want to write the downloaded data. This can be either a flash drive (USB drive) or an ISO image, which can then be burned;

1. Click "Next" and wait until the download completes.

The last step can be particularly time-consuming, given that you'll have to download between 3GB and 7GB of data, depending on which version you choose. Congratulations, now you know how to create a Windows 10 image!

How to record?

As you can see, creating an ISO with Windows 10 is quite simple, but you can’t do much with the image itself - it can only be used in experiments with virtual machine, where it can be successfully connected as a real disk. If you need to create real media - a disk or flash drive, from which you can then use the WinSetupFromUSB or Windows DVD Download Tool applications - articles about these programs, as well as videos, you can find on our website - they have a more than comprehensive answer to the question of how to burn a Windows 10 image to disk.