101: How to Make a System Image Backup in Windows 8/8.1

After the successful installation of Windows 8 on a computer, administrators are strongly recommended to create a system image backup of the operating system. Administrators do so in order to get the system back up and running in case the operating system fails to boot, or otherwise gets corrupted for any reason.

Since the system image is exactly the mirrored copy of the operating system and contains the configuration of the OS, after restoring the computer from that backup image, the computer comes back to the state at which the image was created. For example, if the image was created on the 1st of June, and the system got corrupted on the 22nd of August, if the image is restored on the 22nd of August, the computer will have the exact configuration which it had on the 1st of June.

How to Create a System Image

In order to create a Windows 8 system image, the step-by-step instructions given below should be followed:

1. Log on to a Windows 8 computer with the administrator account.
2. Click the Desktop tile from the Start screen to go to the desktop.
3. Once on the desktop screen, hover the mouse to the bottom right corner.
4. From the displayed options, click Settings.
5. From the Settings pane, click Control Panel.
6. On the Control Panel window, click System and Security category.
7. On the System and Security window, click File History from the right pane.
8. From the left pane of the File History window, click Windows File Recovery option at the bottom.
9. On the Windows File Recovery window, click Create a system image from the left pane.
10. On the Create a system image window, click to select On a hard disk radio button. (In this demonstration). Alternatively, On one or more DVDs or On a network location radio button can also be selected to store Windows 8 system image backup to multiple optical media discs or on a network location, respectively.
11. Once selected, click Next.
12. On the Confirm your backup settings page, click Start backup to initiate the backup process.
13. Wait until the Windows 8 system image is created. On the displayed Create a system repair disc box, click No to skip the system repair disc creation process. Alternatively, the Yes button can also be clicked in order to create a system repair disc.
14. Back on the Create a system image box, click Close.
15. Once done, close the Windows File Recovery window.

For a detailed video walk-through, check out the Tom's Hardware Tutorial Video above.

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