Best image backup software for a system drive that won't boot?

When a Windows 10/11 system drive won't boot due to OS corruption, I'd like to create an image backup before reinstalling Windows.
Any good software for this, that offers a bootable thumbdrive that I can plug into the faulty PC to image the system drive? Best if it's either free or affordable.

Any advice much recommended

Many of the third party imaging programs have free versions.

Or you could just capture the os partition as a .wim file using dism which is included in ms bootable media

installation media can be used if that is all you have to hand. boot it up go to command prompt, find the letter of your os partition

then capture it with dism e.g.

Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:"D:\backup.wim" /CaptureDir:C:\ /Name:whatever

that captures the contents of c:\ into d:\backup.wim

dalchina said:

Not sure I understand the logic here. The basic idea is to create a disk imaging of the O/S (and any other partitions/disks) in a good state - regularly and repeatedly as appropriate so it's reasonable current - so you can then restore the problem partition(s) when something goes wrong- even a failed disk.

The only reason I can think of that you're saying that is that you want a disk image of your corrupt O/S that you can mount and then from which you extract files.

I.e. you should have already been using disk imaging- but haven't been- and your O/S is now irrecoverably damaged, or the disk has failed.



Great that you're looking into using disk imaging.

You will find many references to this topic on tenforums, and recommendations for such programs have been made many times.
Feel free to search tenforums.
I will simply mention some names and no details as these have been given many times.

best disk imaging

I'll try one of those. What I want it to back up the corrupted OS so that I can extract items later if need be. So it has to be a image that can be mounted, not just a blob that can only be used to restore the image to a drive.

Thank you

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SIW2 said:

Many of the third party imaging programs have free versions.

Or you could just capture the os partition as a .wim file using dism which is included in ms bootable media

installation media can be used if that is all you have to hand. boot it up go to command prompt, find the letter of your os partition

then capture it with dism e.g.

Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:"D:\backup.wim" /CaptureDir:C:\ /Name:whatever

that captures the contents of c:\ into d:\backup.wim

I'll check that: it seems like a dism image ca be mounted and searched in File Explorer, by what AI told me. Thanks!

dalchina said:

All disk imaging programs I know of allow images to be mounted and explored with file explorer.

A problem you may face is this:
If the drive in question is failing (duff sectors etc) you most likely won't be able to create a conventional disk image.
Whether that's possible could even depend on which imaging program you use- i.e. what checks it does when imaging. MR in particular will detect CRC errors - and abort imaging - which is helpful in ensuring your image is sound, from a sound source.

I therefore recommend you run Crystal Diskinfo (free) to at least check the SMART parameters of the disk in question before attempting to create an image.

Otherwise there's so-called 'forensic' imaging - where what is captured is literally an exact bit copy of what is read from disk, with no checks. This is slow and large.

I'm thinking now. Ideally the image should not only be mountable/searchable, but able to be restored into the C:\ partition in the rare case I may need to restore it, such as if prefer to get the PC back to the old OS.
I wonder if DISM would do that too?

rodion15 said:

I'm thinking now. Ideally the image should not only be mountable/searchable, but able to be restored into the C:\ partition in the rare case I may need to restore it, such as if prefer to get the PC back to the old OS.
I wonder if DISM would do that too?

yes a wim image can be applied to a partition easily enough. I do it often. Format the partition first.

dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:D:\Backup.wim /index:1 /ApplyDir:C:\

A handy way is to use dism ++ to capture and apply wim files. It runs in winpe environment without any extra dependencies.

download dism++

I went to system backup, I chose hasleo backup. On their site there are instructions for each part of the program, it is not complicated just like the software, it is simple. You can search in the image, and I have already restored the c: partition without the efi msr and recovery partitions. By only restoring the c partition: it is not certain that the disk will boot, it is the same for all backup software. There is a forum on their site.

itsme1 said:

I went to system backup, I chose hasleo backup. On their site there are instructions for each part of the program, it is not complicated just like the software, it is simple. You can search in the image, and I have already restored the c: partition without the efi msr and recovery partitions. By only restoring the c partition: it is not certain that the disk will boot, it is the same for all backup software. There is a forum on their site.

You're right, I'd no doubt image the hidden boot partitions too, I didn't think of that. Thanks.

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SIW2 said:

yes a wim image can be applied to a partition easily enough. I do it often. Format the partition first.

dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:\Backup.wim /index:1 /ApplyDir:C:\

A handy way is to use dism ++ to capture and apply wim files. It runs in winpe environment without any extra dependencies.

download dism++

So if I want to image a Windows system drive so it's also bootable when restored to C, I should back up the hidden boot partitons too. Whould DISM do that too?