How to back up Windows 11

In the event of serious problems on your computer, a full backup of Windows 11 will help solve problems with the health of the operating system using the restore function. To take advantage of this feature, you need to have a backup of your Windows 11 system.

A Windows 11 backup is a pre-created backup copy of data that is used to restore the system in case of problems or failures on the device. After performing the restore, you will be able to return the Windows OS to the state it had at the time the backup was created.

You can make a backup of your Windows 11 system using the built-in tool or use third-party software for this. In this guide, you will find instructions on how to back up Windows 11 with a system tool.

Windows 11 system backup: creation features

Restoring using backup in Windows 11 with a system tool has its own characteristics. The tool creates a backup copy of the entire system, including additional hard drives if they are specified in the backup options.

Having a system backup allows you to restore your computer in case of critical system problems: attacks by malicious software such as ransomware, hardware failures, or after installing problematic updates.

Also, creating a system recovery image in a timely manner can help you revert to a previous version of Windows after upgrading to a new OS version, such as after upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

Although there is no modern backup tool in Windows 11, you can still use the “Backup and Restore (Windows 7)” feature to save a full backup that includes all components found on the system drive partition: Windows installation files, device drivers, applications, settings, and personal files.

As a result of this operation, you will create a system image – a copy of the system disk, which can be used in case of a hard drive or computer failure.

After the necessary explanations, we move on to the practical part of the article, from which you will learn how to create a system image for Windows recovery.

Preparing to back up Windows 11

Before creating a full backup of Windows 11, which we will place on an external USB hard drive or other similar media, it is advisable to optimize the system.

Do the following:

• Delete temporary and junk files.
• Use the Disk Cleanup tool to remove unnecessary data from your computer.
• If your PC has a hard disk drive (HDD), defragment it. If the system is on an SSD drive, then this operation is not necessary.

These activities will result in a reduction in the amount of data to be archived. Thanks to this, the process of creating an archive copy will take less time, and the backup itself will be smaller.

A Windows 11 backup is saved to a flash drive with sufficient capacity or to an external hard drive. This is the best option, because for security reasons it is better to store archived copies separately. You can use a different PC hard drive or a non-system drive partition to save the Windows image file.

How to back up Windows 11 using the System Imaging Tool

Let’s move on to the next step, in which you will learn how to create a system image for Windows recovery. Now we will look at creating a Windows 11 system backup using the built-in system image backup tool.

To create a system recovery image for a Windows 11 computer, follow these steps:

1. Insert an external hard drive, USB flash drive or other drive with enough space to store the archive with the operating system into the USB port of the computer.

To store information, you can use another hard drive on this PC or another non-system disk partition.

2. Open the Windows Control Panel.
3. In the “All Control Panel Items” window, set the view option to “Small Icons”.
4. Click on “Backup and Restore (Windows 7)” to open the application.
5. In the File Backup and Restore (Windows 7) window, click on the Create System Image option located in the left pane.

In the window “Where will the archive be stored?” select an external drive to save your Windows 11 backup there:

• On the hard drive.
• On DVD.
• in a network folder.

6. Specify a drive with enough space to store the backup.
7. In the window “Which drives do you want to include in the backup?” By default, the disks required to start Windows are added. The system disk partition and hidden service partitions have been added here.

You can add other disks on your computer to the backup task, but without the disk on which this backup will be saved.

Now we need to start backing up Windows 11.

8. In the “Confirm backup settings” window, review the list of disks, and then click the “Backup” button.

For archiving, you will need to take up a certain amount of disk space in the storage, depending on the amount of data being copied.

9. In the “Creating a system image” window, the archive is saved.
10. The process of creating a backup takes some time, which depends on the amount of information being backed up.
11. Finally, the “Do you want to create a recovery disk?” window will open, in which you need to click on the “Yes” or “No” button.

You may need a Windows recovery disc if your computer fails to start. With it, you will be able to boot to your PC to start the system recovery process in such circumstances. Read more about creating and using a recovery drive in another article on the site.

12. In the Backup Successful window, click the Close button.

The backup of Windows 11 with installation files, settings, applications and personal data is now complete. The system backup image files are stored in the “WindowsImageBackup” folder.

How to backup Windows 11 using the wbAdmin tool

Advanced users can use the wbadmin command line utility, which is used to manage Windows backups. You can create a system recovery image in another way.

To create a full backup on Windows 11 using the wbAdmin command line tool, follow these steps:

1. Connect an external USB drive of sufficient capacity (external hard drive or USB flash drive) to the PC.
2. Right click on the start menu.
3. In the context menu, click on the “Windows Terminal (Administrator)” item.
4. On the top panel of the terminal, click on the arrow, select command prompt.
5. Type the following command to create a full backup using wbAdmin on Windows 11 and then press Enter:

wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:X: -include:C: -allCritical -quiet

In this command, instead of “X” in the “-backupTarget” option, enter the drive letter of the external storage on your PC that you want to use for backup.

After completing these steps, the Windows 11 backup will be saved to the external drive that you specify in the command.

Article Conclusions

The operating system has a tool for creating a system backup image. The user can use the system backup to restore Windows in case of problems with the computer. Backing up the operating system and restoring Windows 11 will help solve problems that occur on the user’s PC.