Skip to main content

Best practices to create full disk image to restore Windows 8.1 laptop after HP factory reset

Thread needs solution

My HP laptop has failed the Windows 8.1 upgrades since April. It is under warranty and HP, having tried everything else, wants me to send it in to them to wipe clean and start over. As you can imagine I have concerns.

What are the best practice recommendations for doing a full disk image backup before I send the laptop to HP (with any caveats), keeping in mind that I will be restoring to a new installation which will have updated system files? Also I no longer have the installation media for some of my applications and of course I want to protect my data.

Thanks for your help!

0 Users found this helpful

I would copy your files to a USB disk for safekeeping. As you receive your laptop back, you will have to reinstall your apps, and then copy your content back.
You could use ATI to backup your disk, but if you were to restore the disk, you would erase the set up of your computer. Using ATI to backup content temporarily is not particularly useful or wise, compared with a simple file copy.

Perhaps I was not clear. I do not have all of the installation discs, and any way reinstalling that many apps and programs would be very time consuming.

Acronis True Image 2014 has an option to do a full disk image backup and then restore to a different computer. This option is the one for which I need advice. Can you direct me to the person or area where I could get best practices and/or caveat advice for this procedure before I implement it? Thanks for your help.

Pat wants you to understand the result of what you propose. You wrote:

jtnhumble wrote:
keeping in mind that I will be restoring to a new installation which will have updated system files?

If you restore a backup image, it would wipe out those updated system files. If you don't care about that, then I don't know why you mentioned it.

You can of course take a full disk mode backup of your current system. But, if you have problems with your Windows installation, those would presumably be captured in such a backup and might therefore continue after restoration to the returned computer. That's why Pat suggestion reinstalling your apps.

I would create a full disk mode backup regardless. You could create a fresh full disk mode backup of the returned system, then restore the old backup and see the result. If the old problems recur and you cannot fix them, then you could restore the newer full disk mode backup, using the ATI bootable Rescue Media.

OK. Thanks. The purpose for HP's factory reset of the Windows 8.1 laptop is that it is apparently one of thousands that can not successfully complete Microsoft's April incremental Windows 8.1 security update. HP will install a newer disk image that already has the Microsoft updates installed.

I will make two full disk backups, one of the old system and one of the new one when it returns from HP.

My understanding of the Acronis restore to different computer hardware procedure is that it does not overwrite newer operating system files. That would not make much sense.

My intent is to restore my programs and data to the updated laptop, without damaging the operating system.

Your understanding is incorrect. Any disk restore, whether to the same or different hardware, by definition overwrites whatever is on the disk. That's the purpose of a disk restore, to replace any current contents with the saved image. All disk imaging software works on the same principle.

If you intend to retain the new system provided by HP, you cannot perform a disk restore. You can of course restore your user data files. You will have to install your applications in the usual manner.

When my daughter's computer motherboard failed earlier this year, I did a restore to a new computer with this same Acronis TrueImage 2014 product. It did not overwrite the new computer with the old hardware drivers and operating system files from the failed computer. It only restored the operating system files that were appropriate to the new computer. Her applications and data were transferred correctly.

Can you put me in touch with someone who is familiar with this aspect of Acronis TrueImage 2014, restore to different hardware? Thanks for your help.

You may restore to dissimilar hardware with the Premium version. In such case, you may (probably will) need to have drivers ready for the differing hardware components. But, a full disk restore, even to dissimilar hardware, will definitely overwrite whatever is on the disk before the restore. If the drive contains a newer OS and you restore a disk backup of an older OS, the result will be that the newer OS is replaced by the older OS.

I think I understand your objective however I do not think it is achievable. Your objective to my understanding is to have HP INSTALL a new Windows 8.1 OS then you wish to RESTORE your application programs and data to this new OS installation. That is not achievable by ATI nor any other disk imaging application nor any software application period that I am aware of period.

Once a new installation of an operating system such as Windows is performed, program applications must then be INSTALLED within the operating system in order for such program applications to operate. It is not possible for a program to run in as OS until it has been installed first. It is possible to recover an applications data files however so if you can somehow get your hands on the install disks for the applications to perform installations of those programs you can then restore any data files for those programs using ATI.

Images and videos are already in compressed form so there is no need to compress them, further if you still compress it then they will only compress to 92%-95% and will consume a lot of time so I will suggest you not to create image of full disk instead you should compress your data files and store them at any other place like external hdd or else.