How to backup windows on new pcs computer

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Pauljenks

Silver Level Poster
My new PC

Case
LIAN LI O11DYNAMIC EVO RGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core CPU (Up to 5.2GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair DOMINATOR TITANIUM DDR5 6400MHz CL32 (2 x 16GB) KIT
Graphics Card
16GB GIGABYTE GEFORCE RTX 5080 WINDFORCE OC - HDMI, 3 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NH NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6500 MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W HXi SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® PLATINUM V2
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 360 RX RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Extra Case Fans
4 x Corsair ICUE LINK RX120 RGB PWM Fan + Controller Kit
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Also ordered the icue link pump vrm fan from Corsair to be fitted when pc arrives.

My new computer will be arriving over the next few days.

What I want to know is the best backup strategy of windows. I want to make a system image backup of a clean windows installed with all latest chipset drives and windows updates.

Do I use windows built in backup and restore or software like macrium reflect.

Secondly is it a good idea to add 100gb partition to my 4 tb sdd or even my main 512gb drive?
This would keep the system image separate with it's own drive letter I can name Backup

Finally if for some reason I can't access windows when turning on the pc, is there a way to access the system image form a usb drive somehow. Could I use the Windows 11 Installation Media usb drive?

Obviously every six months or so I will be clean installing anyway. The system image is for when windows is playing up constantly and is a simple fix for any corrupted files, software, drivers etc.

Cheers!
 
Nursemorph

Nursemorph

Silver Level Poster
Unless you are regularly replacing that image, it's going to be out of date the first time Windows updates after you make the image. Personally, I just keep the Windows Installation Media on a USB and use that if Windows is messing about (especially if things like DISM System Health and scannow don't work)...better to start fresh than be trying to root out a single program etc..at least that's the way i prefer to do it. Backup wise, I just keep important files etc on a hard drive outside of my PC...a drive within Windows could get corrupted etc if Windows is having issues.
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Don't partition an HDD/SSD, to use as a backups, as if a component fails you lose EVERYTHING!

Keep a USB stick with the latest Windows installation media on, along with latest chipset drivers and any others that aren't installed through Windows update.

For backups, keep a/multiple separate HDDs with complete & incremental backups.

Backing Up - A Sample Strategy

I have edited this post to reflect a change in the backup software I use. Pretty much everyone knows that they should be backing up their data. But why do we do it? No, it's a serious question. The backup strategy that you select depends entirely on what you're backing up and what you want to...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk

I use Macrium Reflect X (Home, annual subscription) on a multi-disk basis (internal HDD, and external HDD that is disconnected from the PC after the backup is completed), and some stuff is stores on individual drives/cloud services for different client projects.
 
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Pauljenks

Silver Level Poster
TonyCarter said:
Don't partition an HDD/SSD, to use as a backups, as if a component fails you lose EVERYTHING!

Keep a USB stick with the latest Windows installation media on, along with latest chipset drivers and any others that aren't installed through Windows update.

For backups, keep a/multiple separate HDDs with complete & incremental backups.

Backing Up - A Sample Strategy

I have edited this post to reflect a change in the backup software I use. Pretty much everyone knows that they should be backing up their data. But why do we do it? No, it's a serious question. The backup strategy that you select depends entirely on what you're backing up and what you want to...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk

I use Macrium Reflect X (Home, annual subscription) on a multi-disk basis (internal HDD, and external HDD that is disconnected from the PC after the backup is completed), and some stuff is stores on individual drives/cloud services for different client projects.
Click to expand...
As suggested maybe the best option is just to use the windows installation media usb disc and keep putting updated chipset/network drivers on the disc every so often. All that's needed after that are the windows updates.
How long on average would you say from putting the disc in to install windows, updating latest windows patches to actually using windows. About an hour?
 
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Pauljenks

Silver Level Poster
Also do I put my game launchers like steam and battle net and utilities like hwinfo, cpuz, GPUs, benchmarking tools ect on my os drive or should I put them on my 4tb drive alongside my games?
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Pauljenks said:
Also do I put my game launchers like steam and battle net and utilities like hwinfo, cpuz, GPUs, benchmarking tools ect on my os drive or should I put them on my 4tb drive alongside my games?
Click to expand...
Apps can stay on the OS drive, as you can easily download them again. It's the huge game installs you don't want to lose.

Remember to keep your appdata/user folder on another drive, as this will contain all your settings/preferences/licences/non-cloud saves for everything.
 
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Pauljenks

Silver Level Poster
TonyCarter said:
Apps can stay on the OS drive, as you can easily download them again. It's the huge game installs you don't want to lose.

Remember to keep your appdata/user folder on another drive, as this will contain all your settings/preferences/licences/non-cloud saves for everything.
Click to expand...
Good point. I'll keep app data ect on my gaming drive
 
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Pauljenks

Silver Level Poster
Is the windows 11 licence key burnt into the bios meaning I don't have to enter it when doing a clean install?

Just wondering because I was given a windows 11 licence in my specs?
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
It’ll be stored on the computer, but when hardware changes / or you reinstall the OS, you may have to log into your Microsoft account to re re-authorise from there.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Pauljenks said:
Is the windows 11 licence key burnt into the bios meaning I don't have to enter it when doing a clean install?

Just wondering because I was given a windows 11 licence in my specs?
Click to expand...
If you only have a local account, it's stored in the BIOS.

As soon as you log in with a microsoft account, then the license is tied to that account, and the OS will relicense once you're logged back in with that same account.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Pauljenks said:
As suggested maybe the best option is just to use the windows installation media usb disc and keep putting updated chipset/network drivers on the disc every so often. All that's needed after that are the windows updates.
Click to expand...
There's no benefit to this, all you do is clean install from the latest Microsoft media on a USB, current drivers etc are installed via windows update once you're in windows.

A clean install if you have a properly configured drive setup will only take about 30 minutes, everything will either be backed up to the cloud, or located on a secondary drive so you can just point the application to it once the app is installed.

There should never be a need to backup the windows drive itself as it fully recoverable from a clean install with minimal fuss.

Windows installation has changed enormously since early Windows 7 days, it's a completely different process nowadays.
 
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Pauljenks

Silver Level Poster
SpyderTracks said:
There's no benefit to this, all you do is clean install from the latest Microsoft media on a USB, current drivers etc are installed via windows update once you're in windows.

A clean install if you have a properly configured drive setup will only take about 30 minutes, everything will either be backed up to the cloud, or located on a secondary drive so you can just point the application to it once the app is installed.

There should never be a need to backup the windows drive itself as it fully recoverable from a clean install with minimal fuss.
Click to expand...
I was under the assumption that after a clean install you went to the motherboards website to download the latest chipset and networks drivers or are you saying windows does that automatically now?
 
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