Windows 8 image/recovery

Tinyman

New Member
Messages
18
Hello all, I am new to this forum, and what a great place. I have enjoyed reading lots and trying some of the tutorials. However, I am having dramas, my computer keeps crashing. I am running windows 8 Pro. I am not a "newbie" to computing but I am not a "geek" (I don't think). What I am wanting to do is to create a full system image (OS, files, data, etc), save it onto one of my external hard drives or DVD and create a system recovery DVD so that I can get my system back up without the need to load Windows 7, Windows 8, all the updates, individual programs and migrate my data files. I have done a fair amount of reading but at this stage I feel I am getting "lost". I do not always trust third party software to do this and am, at times, sceptical about some of the windows features/programs and their stability. I hope that this all makes sense.

In closing, great site, keep up the info that's available, I have looked at other Windows 8 forums and I think I prefer this one.

Regards
Andrew
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
    CPU
    Pentium (R) Dual Core E5200 @ 2.50GHZ
    Memory
    3.00 GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell E1909W (Analog)
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Backup + Desk USB Device 3TB
    WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device 2TB
    WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device 2TB
    WD My Book 1140 USB Device 3TB
    WDC WD10EZRX-00A8LB0 1TB
    Case
    Standard Slimline
    Cooling
    Standard
    Keyboard
    Logitech standard cordless
    Mouse
    Logitech USB Whelmouse
    Internet Speed
    Send 800 KBPS Rec 16.0 KBPS
    Other Info
    Brother HL-2130 Laser Printer USB
    Satellite Internet
Hi Tinyman,

Based on your current situation, I'm afraid you might be a bit late with your idea of creating a full system image because of the possible corruption due to your computer always crashing. Anyway, I would recommend the following course of action:

First, back up all of your important data, video, and image files to an external source.

Next, try to fix your potential corruption via this tutorial:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/26512-dism-fixing-component-store-corruption-windows-8-a.html

If the above fails, consider the following additional actions:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/26095-repair-install-windows-8-a.html

FYI, I did a repair install recently and it worked perfectly as described in the above tutorial.

Good luck.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    Intel G2020
    Motherboard
    ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0
    Memory
    8GBs @ 1333 MHz
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 840 EVO
    PSU
    400w
    Internet Speed
    57/11
If you bought your computer with Windows 8 installed then there may be a recovery partition available to reset it to out of the box condition. Check the manufacturer's info and programs for something mentioning recovery. Keep in mind that this kind of recovery sometimes erases all user data and programs, so BACK UP!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 consumer 64 bit
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire M5 481PT-6644
    CPU
    Intel Core I5
    Memory
    6 GB
    Hard Drives
    Spinning/SSD hybrid 500GB/20GB
    Mouse
    ELAN Trackpad
    Internet Speed
    18mbs/5mbs
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
my2cents, thankyou for your reply. I did as suggested on the 2 links that you supplied. I had to do the repair first as I tried the DISM Fix and it failed first time. You may have taken my first post slightly incorrect. I am trying to get my system stable so that I can then create an image that I can use if I have problems later on. Am I right in saying that as I have done the repairs that my system may be stable now (maybe only time will tell)? What tutorial/process would you suggest for doing a complete image of a drive (OS, files, programs) and having a bootable DVD to use if the system stops?

mikeytg, thankyou also. I always have back ups of all of my data. I have in total 7TB of storage space external to my main computer.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
    CPU
    Pentium (R) Dual Core E5200 @ 2.50GHZ
    Memory
    3.00 GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell E1909W (Analog)
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Backup + Desk USB Device 3TB
    WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device 2TB
    WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device 2TB
    WD My Book 1140 USB Device 3TB
    WDC WD10EZRX-00A8LB0 1TB
    Case
    Standard Slimline
    Cooling
    Standard
    Keyboard
    Logitech standard cordless
    Mouse
    Logitech USB Whelmouse
    Internet Speed
    Send 800 KBPS Rec 16.0 KBPS
    Other Info
    Brother HL-2130 Laser Printer USB
    Satellite Internet
Hi Tinyman,

Am I right in saying that as I have done the repairs that my system may be stable now

Sounds like you are on the right track to stability; however, only time will tell (as measured by yourself).

What tutorial/process would you suggest for doing a complete image of a drive

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8956-system-image-create-windows-8-a.html
(includes an option to create a rescue disc or USB recovery drive)

or

Imaging with free Macrium - Windows 7 Help Forums
(includes an option to create a Macrium Free rescue disk for image recovery)

There are also other options so wait for additional responses as well.

Good luck.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    Intel G2020
    Motherboard
    ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0
    Memory
    8GBs @ 1333 MHz
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 840 EVO
    PSU
    400w
    Internet Speed
    57/11
Hey Guys, guess what!! My system crashed yesterday. I am trying to recover my image. I boot from the recovery CD that I created when created the system image. The system image is stored on an external hard drive. When I try to recover the image it comes up with an error "Network path not found error 0x80070035". I have shared the folder, I have tried everything that I can think of to fix this. Any Ideas?

Tinyman
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer
    CPU
    Pentium (R) Dual Core E5200 @ 2.50GHZ
    Memory
    3.00 GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell E1909W (Analog)
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Backup + Desk USB Device 3TB
    WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device 2TB
    WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device 2TB
    WD My Book 1140 USB Device 3TB
    WDC WD10EZRX-00A8LB0 1TB
    Case
    Standard Slimline
    Cooling
    Standard
    Keyboard
    Logitech standard cordless
    Mouse
    Logitech USB Whelmouse
    Internet Speed
    Send 800 KBPS Rec 16.0 KBPS
    Other Info
    Brother HL-2130 Laser Printer USB
    Satellite Internet
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