Preparing System Image for Windows 10 Upgrade

By Olin Coles

Microsoft has generously offered Windows 10 as a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, and so far the response has been very positive. In this article Benchmark Reviews details the steps needed to successfully complete a full backup of Windows 7 or Windows 8 to a System Image, prior to upgrading to Windows 10. This process preserves everything on the drive, and may be used to restore back to your previous installation without losing any data or applications. This guide may also be used to create a Windows 10 backup System Image, or for creating a hard disk image that can be restored onto an SSD.

The best way to protect and preserve your computing data is with a reliable backup, and luckily Windows 7/8 offers a built-in Backup and Restore tool for creating full System Images. With most programs, the software creates a backup intended to preserve data files. By using the Windows 7 System Image tool, users may restore their entire disk and return the system back to the moment it was backed-up. Taking things one step further, some users are taking this opportunity to replace their slow hard disk drive with a fast new solid state drive, and this tutorial will reveal the best ways to avoid upgrade errors.

This guide will detail the steps necessary to back-up data, create a system restore image, and recover the computer’s drive using a system disk for Windows 7/8/10. Additionally, Benchmark Reviews offers advice on how to avoid the system image restore errors during the recovery operation. Users experiencing messages like “The system image restore failed. 0x80042403” or “No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found.” and “The system image restore failed. Error details: The parameter is incorrect. 0x80070057” will be guided towards success in this article.