Newbie - backup before win11 update + restore

[alp]

I'm looking for a reliable way to backup my windows 10 laptop before trying a Flyby11 windows 11 update just in case anything goes wrong, is this software suitable for this?

I have a single HDD TB, (Disk 0 931.51GB)
From Disk Management, Partition sizes are...
C 199.71GB capacity, of which 69.37GB is free, system, boot drive
E 730.93GB capacity, of which 102.85GB is free, logical drive
(Disk 0 partition 2) 889MB capacity, of which 889MB s free, recovery partition

C contains win10 and my files, E contains only media files.
I need to backup at least C, possibly E if I have the space.

I have an external USB drive with about 580GB of free space.
Can I make a backup to this drive and retain (not overwrite) the roughly 340GB of stuff I already have on the ext HDD?
What are the best settings to use to be able to restore this drive? I need to backup C, E is less important but would be nice if I could.

If things go wrong when updating to Win 11 how can I restore back to Win 10, do you just plug in the Ext drive and or do I need some other software to make it boot?

Thanks,

[peas]

Hi alp,

Yes, you can definitely back up C (and even E if there’s space) to your external drive without overwriting your existing files, as long as you create a backup image rather than just copying files manually. Look for options like “disk/partition image” in EasyUEFI or other backup tools.

Make sure your external drive is formatted NTFS so it can store large backup files. Also, create a bootable recovery USB with the backup software, that’s what you’d use to boot the laptop and restore your image if the Windows 11 update goes sideways.

Good luck with the upgrade!

[admin]

You only have 240GB of free space on your external drive, and it's unlikely that you'll be able to back up both the Windows OS and the E: drive (about 760GB of data in total) to that drive, even with the maximum compression level.

You should use the System backup feature instead of the Disk/Partition backup feature to back up the Windows operating system, which ensures that all partitions (system, boot and recovery partitions.) related to the Windows operating system are backed up so that the restored Windows operating system can boot normally.

@peas is right, you'd better create a bootable emergency USB drive so that you can boot from that USB drive to restore Windows if the upgrade fails and your computer doesn't boot properly.