3 General Questions about imaging, compression, and Hardware ID

sorrymargaret · 22 Jun 2019

1. How do you actually re-image a computer using an image? Do you HAVE to have a system repair disc made? Are there any programs that make your images into .iso files so you could boot from it somehow?

2. Is there any compression when creating a system image of Windows using the built in system imaging (Backup and Resto)

3. This question is a bit of a long shot, and a little off-topic. But, it used to be if you changed a piece of hardware from your computer, Windows might've read it as a different computer and you'd have to re-install Windows. Well someone told me about this way you could reset the 'hardware ID' (don't know what it would actually be called) of Windows and you wouldn't have that trouble anymore. I was wondering ^1.How to do that and ^2. Would doing that allow me to re-image Computer2 to be the same as Computer1?

dalchina · 22 Jun 2019

Hi, first 'Windows 10 Backup and Restore' is deprecated- even MS recommends using 3rd party tools for disk imaging such as Macrium Reflect (free/commercial), so often commended here.

Image files are compressed copies of the (combinations of) partitions or disks imaged.
You can choose the compression level.

There are two basic types of image- the ones typically used, being the used parts of the disk or partition, and forensic images, which are exact copies of everything.

A disk image can be restored to any disk (that is large enough, of course).

Consider cloning - you can restore a clone, so the disk appears exactly as if you had physically moved it from one PC to another.

The hardware ids of a PC are another matter. Consider, for example, that MS activation relies on the hash of a particular form of hardware id, and is not sensitive to you changing the disk.

Note that with MR, e.g, you can image Windows (all partitions created when W was installed), and with any such tool also any partition or disk.