Image File or File Backup - Which One To Use?

You press the power button on your laptop.....the Windows animation starts....then goes on..... and goes on.....and goes on.

You press the power button again to restart it. The animation appears.....and takes forever to boot into Windows.
Finally you log in! You tell yourself, "I need a new computer!"

Or do you?

Image File vs File Backup
Sometimes all it takes is rebooting your computer. Other times it may take a complete restore.

A Windows Image File takes a complete snapshot of your entire drive, boot sectors, system files and all. 
It's the only way to backup and restore your Windows correctly.
Because so much data has to be backed up, a system image will take a much longer time to create than a smaller, more focused backup. 

It will also be harder to import on another computer. If your entire computer dies, you won’t be able to just restore a system image that was created on another computer — your Windows installation won’t run properly on different hardware. You’d need to reinstall Windows anyway.



A File Backup only backs-up files in your personal folders. Your documents, pictures...etc

Of the two, a File Backup is the most important. 

You can always restore Windows without an Image File, however if you don't have a backup of your personal files, documents and pictures.....well....you get the hint.

How to create a Windows Image File

Britec has an excellent video on how to create a Windows 10 Image File