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You use a program like Macrium Reflect to create an image of your current operating system drive and any other necessary partitions, and store that image on one of your data drives.
That way, if you have a major problem with windows that you just can't fix, you boot from the Macrium Reflect Rescue Media (either a cd or usb stick) (which you create with the Macrium software) and reimage your operating system partition/drive etc. from the image you have on your data drive.
Here is a shot showing how Disk 2 is dedicated to Games & Images on my Z170
Think of a Disk Image as a picture of your operating system drive.
There are 2 ways to create disk images. You can use Windows built in imaging software or you can use a program like Macrium Reflect.
Myself and 99% of the people here will tell you to use Macrium over Windows software.
There are plenty of youtube videos you can watch to learn how to do it.
I will post both Tutorials.
Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect Windows 10 Tutorials
Create System Image in Windows 10 Windows 10 Tutorials
The problem I came across using windows imaging software was that it would only reimage to the original drive the image was made from, that`s great, but what if you wanted to install a larger drive or the original drive died.
Macrium Reflect does not care what drive you restore the image on :)
Should I reformat hdd before I reinstall whindows?
When I tried to reinstall its saying it may be another copy of windows on this hdd.
I would just delete the partitions and let Windows recreate / format.
That said do you have all your personal data off the drive? That has to be first step.
You may have data in separate partition which means all partitions can't be deleted.
The forum has an excellent tutorial on a clean install.
Clean Install Windows 10
If you need to get data off first then I would suggest this disk.
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk
Ken
I solved by changing hard drive sata port on mother board : windows booted fine without usb key plugged and SSD was redected and reinstalled automatically by SYSTEM at first login.
Last edited by Nicolas Europe; 06 Feb 2023 at 19:33. Reason: typo