What to do when Win8 system images won’t restore

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LANGALIST PLUS

What to do when Win8 system images won’t restore

By Fred Langa It’s painfully frustrating when a backup or system image simply won’t restore properly. But there’s an easy fix for a common problem with Win8.1’s custom images. Plus: A hard drive is filling with huge and mysterious files, questions about dual-booting Win10 and Linux, and suggestions for removing an active malware infection from a PC.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/langalist-plus/what-to-do-when-win8-system-images-wont-restore/ (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

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Well Fred, you give a good example of why I Don’t use the Win8 imaging tool for a backup solution. I did use it once early on in the Win8 build and have backed up that image. But I moved on quickly to something better.

Have not seen any mention of Win10 on that account. Does it restore a decent imaging tool or have they abandoned it?

Myself, I still use the old technique you once recommended, separating data and software. Yep, its more complex to set up and Win8 always wants me to put stuff in the User folders. But I ALWAYS have access to the data files, even if Windows hiccups. Don’t need to have the image software running to get at it. So I image the boot drive and copy the data drive. It just works.

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Fred: Just thought I’d mention another program to check out mysterious files in case you’ve never seen it. I’ve used it many times.

https://www.safer-networking.org: filealyz-2.0.5.57.exe

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