Help ! Help! Windows 10 reinstall advice needed

@barryman

The backup you made with AOMEI, will just overwrite Windows with the Windows you had, when you made the backup. So definitely try to restore the backup, first. It's like a time machine.
Yes.... restoring the AOMEI "System Image", is a full working copy of Windows. It's just a month old.

Either the In-Place Upgrade, or the Clean Install, will show you how to create the Windows 10 Install Media.
In other words... either will show you how to download a fresh copy of Windows 10.

The Media Creation Tool, is just a tool that will download a fresh copy of Windows, and put it on a bootable USB stick, at the same time. No technical skill involved.
When you download Windows 10, the Media Creation Tool gives you the option to save it as an ISO image, or to put it on a bootable USB stick.


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Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

An In-Place Upgrade "compares" what is installed on the computer, with the Windows ISO image.
Then, it overwrites any corrupted Windows files, with clean copies from the ISO image.
This is how it "repairs" Windows while allowing you to keep your programs and personal files.

And if that doesn't fix things...

Clean Install Windows 10


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Backup software is just like System Restore, except that it "works".

System Restore, merges the restore point with Windows.
Backup software, overwrites Windows with your backup image.

Of the two, backup software is the much better choice. When you restore from a backup, it erases any bad things that have happened, since you made the backup. System Restore can't do that, because it doesn't "overwrite".



I added to your reputation, just because you made a backup.
That was Olympic grade fore-sightedness.

If you want to do a Clean Install, first try restoring your saved image that you did. You won't lose any files, and everything should work the same way it did during that image file.

BUT before doing that, try this:
1) Open Command Prompt as an Administrator
2) Paste the following, and press Enter: dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
3) Once complete, paste this and press Enter: sfc /scannow
This process will take some time.
4) Restart the computer once complete.

See if the computer is working well.

If not, then Restore your saved Image.

IF you want to do a Clean Install, which is the last resort method, then there's this app that tells you your key that you should write down somewhere, if your computer doesn't have a key sticker on it. This is an example of what mine is; I removed the majority of my key in this image.



Here's the site for that:
Windows Key Viewer - WinTools.Info

barryman said:

What I did a month ago was to make a System Image using Aomei Backupper and this image was saved onto an external hard drive.
So, if I restored this Aomei system image I was told it overwrites what is on my PC at the moment. But is a system image the same as a full working copy of Windows 10 ??

Yes.
A system image of the disk containing a fully working Windows OS will restore exactly the same fully working Windows OS.
And system images are much more reliable than Restore points.
Your act of making a system image has turned a potential disaster into a mere inconvenience. You can be back up & running as well as you were within half an hour.

barryman said:

... is there any way I can download a fresh copy of Win 10 even though I haven’t got original disk??

barryman said:

I have tried looking it up and see things like Windows Media Creation Tool etc but just don’t understand the process from there.

Yes. We all make our own reinstallation disks these days.

There are TenForumsTutorials explaining what you need to do.
1 Download Windows 10 ISO File -TenForumsTutorials [one of them, the MS MCT tool, achieves both steps 1 & 2 in a single operation]
2 Create Bootable Installation USB - TenForumsTutorials
Then
3 Check that your activation is 'with a digital licence' as most of us have these days - Settings, Updates, Activation. If it is then you do not need to enter a Product key at any stage of the reinstallation [or, indeed, ever again].
4 Backup and Restore Device Drivers - TenForumsTutorials - This will save you time & effort after the reinstallation is complete [but is not compulsory].
5 Clean Install - TenForumsTutorials

And it's well worth making an installation disk [a USB actually] even if you succeed with your system image restoration. It's a useful repair tool as well as an installation tool. Startup Repair - TenForumsTutorials

I've numbered each step to make it a bit easier to ask questions about each step.
Each step is straightforward but it can be daunting having to take it all in at once and doing the jobs for the first time.
So, ask away.


Best of luck,
Denis

---

And welcome to TenForums.

It's really worth making time to browse through the Tutorial index - there's a shortcut to it at the top of every page.

- At the foot of the Tutorial index is a shortcut to download it as a spreadsheet.
- I download a new copy each month.
- By downloading it as a spreadsheet I can benefit from Excel's excellent filtering capabilities when I search for topics of interest.

- Tutorials are also listed by category at Tutorials - there's also a shortcut to that at the top of every page.
- Both tutorial lists are searchable.
- You can also search for TenForumsTutorials in many general search engines, such as Google, by adding site:tenforums.com/tutorials after your search term. For example,
taskbar toolbars site:tenforums.com/tutorials

You can search TenForums using the search box in the top-right corner of all TenForums webpages or using Advanced Search - TenForums
- You can also search TenForums threads in many general search engines, such as Google, by adding site:tenforums.com after your search term. For example,
Search for drivers by HardwareID site:tenforums.com
- [This is what the search box in the top-right corner of TenForums webpages does automatically]

Barry,

Your SFC & Dism results make me wonder if your installation could be repaired instead of doing a clean install.
For one thing, a Repair install [which, despite its name, is a repair not an installation] might fix your problems.
Repair Install - TenForumsTutorials
You have not posted info that indicates that a Repair install is relevant but I've definitely done them when I just could not think of anything logical to do and I've been pleasantly surprised that it fixed the problem.
But I should really find out more first otherwise all I'm doing is hardly more logical than telling you to try turning it off then on again.


You could just go ahead with the Repair install in the hope it fixes things or you could post
- What the update you mentioned was.
- What problems that update caused.
- What steps you took that you say caused the current problems.
- What your problems now are.



Denis