Win10 Image Restore - Will only C Drive be overwritten?


  1. Rob99
    Posts : 47
    Windows 10 Home / Version:21H2 / Build:19044.1826
       New #1

    Win10 Image Restore - Will only C Drive be overwritten?


    So, I'm going to update my other laptop to Win 10 Pro and then try creating a Win10 restore partition etc following the tutorial by Kari, but I have a question relating to my dropbox data which is currently on the C drive partition.

    Presumably if I leave it on the C drive I will need to specifically exclude it from the win10 image file creation process as it will be too big to end up in my win10 image file. I wonder if the best option is to move Dropbox to drive D, then clean up C and do the win10 image creation. If I then have to use recovery to re-load the win10 image will it only overwrite C drive and leave the other partitions intact, or will it overwrite the whole hard disk. I'm not worried about losing the data on D drive as its all in Dropbox but it would be a pain to have to download 400GB again. I'm also thinking maybe I should copy Dropbox to an external HDD before I do the win10 image.
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  3. Samuria
    Posts : 8,111
    windows 10
       New #2

    If you use free disk imaging with a recovery boot dvd then you can keep all c and any recovery would put it back as it was when you imaged it. The problem with taking images that it will be out of date every month as new updates arrive
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  4. Try3
    Posts : 16,962
    Windows 10 Home x64 Version 22H2 Build 19045.4170
       New #3

    Rob,

    Samuria is correct but I think you need to ask @Kari since it is that specific procedure you are wondering about.

    Denis
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  6. Kari
    Posts : 17,661
    Windows 10 Pro
       New #4

    I just replied to your post in tutorial thread Factory recovery - Create a Custom Recovery Partition:

    Kari said:
    If you leave 400 GB Dropbox files on drive C: and then capture Windows installation to a WIM file to be used in custom recovery partition, it's going to be one huge install.wim file requiring big recovery partition.

    Only meaningful solution is to move that 400 GB to another internal or external drive, then capture Windows WIM image. When done, move those files back to where they were originally located.

    Kari
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  7. Rob99
    Posts : 47
    Windows 10 Home / Version:21H2 / Build:19044.1826
    Thread Starter
       New #5

    Thanks all.

    Kari, I've replied on the tutorial thread Factory recovery - Create a Custom Recovery Partition as it's more relevant to continue there.
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