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System Restore on new Windows 10 OS on same hard drive

Hello, 

I need some advice about using Aomei System Restore. 
Recently, my laptop became slow and unresponsive so I called a computer repair technician for help. They ran a diagnostic on my machine and told me the OS (Windows 10) was corrupted and that registry files were messed up. He told me he would have to format my hard drive and replace my OS which would mean I would lose all my data, programs and system settings.
Before this happened I managed to backup all my files using Aomei Backupper, using File Backup for my data and System Backup onto an external HD.
My question is: Can I restore my previously backed up system image onto the same hard drive that has been reinstalled with a new Windows 10 OS if I re-install the Aomei Backupper software? 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks. 

Comments

  • No, you can not restore a previously backed up system image on the hard disk with the newly installed version of Windows 10.  To do so using the restore this system backup option will overwrite all of the files and settings on the disk, including your system registry.  When the system restore finishes you will have restored your complete machine back to the snapshot in time when the backup was created.  If the problem existed at that time then you will have re-inserted the erroneous information that caused you to have to format the machine and start over.  There are several different versions of Windows 10 available with the latest being version 2004.  So you can assume that version is what the Technician installed.  Regardless, at this point it would not wise to restore any system images to your machine.

    Based upon what you described above the only thing that you can do at this point is to manually reinstall all of your programs on your machine and then use Aomei Backupper to explore your system image using windows explorer and copy your data files, pictures, videos, music, etc from the folders in the mounted partition and paste them into a new folder with the same name or a new name.  At least you will have that much of your information recovered.

    It would also be wise to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of system backup and/or disk backups because if you had a good, virus free, backup image you could have restored the image and recovered your operating system, all files and folders, and all serial numbers in a matter of minutes.  Briefly, you have to create a WinPE recovery disk or USB drive and boot your machine up on the created recovery disk.  Then browse for the system image and restore it to your machine.  You should never have to completely format your disk and start over if you have valid system backup images available.  If you have questions don't hesitate to ask.    
  • Hi Vbbritt,

    Thanks for the advice and information. Just to clarify, my machine has not been formatted and a new OS installed yet, that was just the advice of the technician who has diagnosed my laptop. I asked him to hold off doing anything while I got more information here.  
    From what you said, it seems not be a wise move to restore a system image if a new OS is installed on my machine. 
    Again, just to clarify my situation, I noticed my laptop becoming unresponsive after a Windows update about a week ago, it was running fine up until then, I ran a virus and a malware scan and the results came out clean so I’m pretty certain it’s not a virus or malware affecting my machine. It got to the point where it would take a really long time to boot up my machine and when it did finally boot into Windows, it would freeze and hang to the point that I couldn’t do anything! 
    About a week prior to this, I made my latest File Backup and System Backup using Aomei Backup as mentioned in my previous post. However, I didn’t create a bootable USB drive as I have read about in the ‘How-to’s’ on the Aomei website and like what you have mentioned in your reply. I only read about this too late when my machine was too unresponsive to do so, and that is why I couldn’t get a chance to perform a System Restore with the bootable USB drive, otherwise I would have tried. 
    It was at this point, (a couple of days ago) that I called the Technician and gave him my machine to diagnose and fix. He told me the diagnosis today, that registry files were corrupted and then told me what he could do (format disk and install new OS).
    In actuality, I really don’t want to go down this road, as I am a music producer and have lots of music programs and plugins that took me a long time to install, I really just want to have my system to how it was a few weeks ago when it was running fine (when I did my latest backups). 
    Tomorrow, I was thinking of asking the Technician if I could make a bootable USB drive from his computer (I read that the bootable USB could be made from any healthy computer and still work with my machine?) and use that to try and do a System Restore from the latest Backup I made a couple of weeks ago when my machine was running fine. 
    In your opinion, would this be a viable option to restore my laptop to a better state where it would work fine again without having to wipe my machine, etc. 
    Thanks for the help and apologies for the long winded explanation, I am new to Aomei and back up software in general so have a lot to learn!




  • Okay give this a try.  Power on your machine and attempt to boot up your laptop.  When it gets to the welcome screen, the screen where you put in your password, hold down the shift key and click on the option to restart your machine.  When the machine reboots a screen should appear that gives you several options.  One of the options should be troubleshoot.  Choose that option.  Another screen, Advanced options, should appear.  On the Advanced Options screen select Start Up Settings.  From the start up settings screen select option 5 to boot into the safe mode with networking.  This should allow your machine to boot up in the safe mode with basic drivers installed.  Once in the safe mode then launch Aomei Backupper and see if you can launch and create rescue media.  If that is successful and you have created a valid USB rescue media on a flash drive then go to the backup selection and see if you can create a disk backup by selecting all partitions on the boot disk (Drive C).  I am assuming that you have an external usb disk where you can store this new backup.  The only reason for this backup is to get your machine back to the state it is in now just in case you have to.

    You really want to create the rescue media on the machine that you want to recover so that all of the proper drivers are installed in the WinPE rescue media disc.  For example if you had a rescue disc made on a AMD machine it would not necessarily have the Intel driver set for a Intel machine.  The end result of creating a rescue disc on just any old computer is that you might not be able to boot your machine once you restore the backup image that you have because the drivers would be missing.  If you are not able to create the rescue disc on your machine then as long as it is created on a machine with the same type of hardware (AMD or Intel) it will most likely work.  Once you get a good rescue disc then you should be able to restore your earlier image and recover your machine assuming that your backup is good.  I am assuming that you performed the verify option when you created the backup.

    If you are pretty sure that you don't have a virus or malware on your machine then I am somewhat puzzled as to how your registry became corrupt.  That just doesn't happen now a days.  If you can get to a command prompt with administrator permissions then type in "SFC /Scannow".  This command will run a check of all system files needed to run windows.  If it finds any discrepancies then it will download and replace the defective files.

    Do you know what update from Microsoft caused all of your problems?  Do you know if it was a feature update?  That is a huge update and it can take hours and hours to complete.  If you turn the machine off while the update is being installed then it could mess things up pretty good.  Version 2004 is the current version of Windows 10 that is often referred to as the spring 2020 edition.  Prior to that there was the November 2019 edition which was version 1909.  Good luck and if I can be of further assistance I'll be happy to help if I can.
  • Thanks again for the advice, I can’t remember exactly what the last updates were, I think they were Cumulative updates. I did run SFC /Scannow a few weeks ago and it didn’t come up with anything, I also ran a CHKDSK and it came up with some bad sectors that were repaired. 
    From what you said about creating a rescue disk (that’s another term for a bootable USB drive, right?) from another computer to use with mine, I gathered that, in general, as long the other computer has the same kind of hardware as mine (which is Intel) it should probably work? That’s good to know! Thanks.
    I’ll keep you updated how it all goes!

  • Aomei Backupper will permit you to create rescue media on CD/DVD, USB flash drives, and as a ISO file.  The term rescue disk is an older term that basically applied to CD/DVD media before USB's became popular.  Yes I am referencing a bootable media.

    I find it troubling that CHKDSK discovered some bad sectors.  Do you know if your laptop has a mechanical drive installed or a solid state drive?  If you have a mechanical drive installed and it is beginning to develop bad sectors then the disk itself could be going bad and need to be replaced.  That would also provide a better explanation as to why you might have registry issues.  If the hard disk is going bad then attempting to restore what you believe to be a good backup may be unsuccessful.  If you haven't already done so I would strongly recommend obtaining a copy of Aomei Partition Assistant and running surface scan on your disk.  In your case it would be best to create a bootable USB drive from Partition Assistant so that you can boot your machine up on the flash drive before performing any tests.  Once you have booted up your machine run the surface scan test to check your disk.  If it keeps discovering random bad sectors then I am going to guess that it is a defective hard disk that is causing your problems and until you replace the drive you will continue to have problems.

    Yes, creating your rescue media on a computer with similar hardware most generally will work.  I also have found that using Aomei PE Builder 2.0 is a better program for creating a bootable USB media than using Aomei Backupper or Aomei Partition Assistant because it gives you access to Aomei Backupper and Aomei Partition Assistant on the same device.  You can obtain a copy here:  https://www.ubackup.com/pe-builder.html if you want to try it out.



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