In this article, we've highlighted the best 5 free Windows 10 disk imaging software options available to users. Additionally, we've included a simple, step-by-step guide to help you create a valuable disk image and perform restorations with ease.
π Video Guide: How to Make a Disk Image with Best Free Disk Imaging Software
(*This video introduces the best free disk imaging software - AOMEI Backupper to you. To learn more disk imaging utilities, please read below.)
Computer users encounter various problems every now and then, such as system crashes, virus attacks, bad sectors, and so on. All these problems can eventually lead to data loss, and even worse, the computer may become unbootable. To get your PC back to normal, you have to reinstall the system as well as programs and then reconfigure everything. It’s too much trouble and time-consuming.
To get rid of this situation, you need free disk imaging software for Windows 10 and use it to create a disk image in advance. Creating a disk image is the process of backing up the entire hard drive to a compressed image file, which contains the operating system, configuration, programs, and all the data. When something goes wrong, the free image software for Windows 10 can help you restore the system and data to the way it was. Taken together, the obvious benefits of using disk imaging software are:
1. Data Protection: It creates a complete backup of your entire hard drive, including the operating system, applications, settings, and files. In case of a system failure or data loss, you can easily restore your system to a previous working state. 2. Disaster Recovery: If your computer experiences a hardware failure, virus attack, or other catastrophic events, disk imaging software allows you to quickly recover your system without the need for reinstalling the operating system and applications from scratch. 3. Convenience: Disk imaging software automates the backup process, making it easy to create regular backups without manual intervention. This ensures that your data is always up-to-date and protected against unexpected events. 4. Time and Cost Savings: By creating disk images, you save time and money that would otherwise be spent on reinstalling software, configuring settings, and transferring data manually in the event of a system failure.
Here I’ll list the top 5 free Windows 10 imaging software: AOMEI Backupper Standard, Windows Back up and Restore, Active Disk Image, Clonezilla, and DriveImage XML. Please get the details below.
AOMEI Backupper Standard is a powerful, excellent, and very popular backup freeware. It provides all kinds of solutions related to backup and restoration, which can help you protect systems, disks, partitions, and individual files/folders.
With the best free disk imaging software for Windows 10, you can enjoy the following benefits:
Free and Easy to Use. It’s a free Windows 10 disk imaging tool with a concise and user-friendly interface, making the operation comprehensible.
Supports Various Destinations. It allows you to save the backup image on your internal/external hard drive, USB flash drive, cloud drive, or network share.
Fast Backup Speed. As the best disk imaging software, AOMEI Backupper offers the highest speed among all backup tools, undoubtedly saving you precious time.
Backup Compression. It helps you save storage space by compressing the backup image. And you can choose the compression level as you like.
Backup Schedule. You can choose to make a disk image daily/weekly/monthly as per your needs. The scheduled backup runs as an incremental backup by default to back up only changed files since the last backup. It will greatly save storage space and backup time.
Best free Windows backup software for personal use.
Windows Backup and Restore is a helpful tool provided by Microsoft for safeguarding your data. With this feature, you can easily create backups of your files, folders, and even system images. It's especially useful in situations where you accidentally delete files or encounter hardware failures. By utilizing Windows Backup and Restore, you can restore your system to a previous state with ease. This built-in tool provides peace of mind knowing that your important data is protected and can be recovered when needed.
The next disk imaging software we'll discuss is Active Disk Image. This tool allows you to back up various types of disks like HDDs, SSDs, CDs, DVDs, and USB flash drives. It even lets you schedule backups for added convenience. Though, it's worth noting that the paid version of this software can be a bit costly you can totally use the free version to make a disk image. Despite this, it offers robust features for disk imaging and backup needs.
Clonezilla is a free and open-source partition and disk imaging program. It comes in three versions: Clonezilla Live, Clonezilla Lite server, and Clonezilla SE (server edition). Clonezilla Live is designed for individual computer backups, whereas Clonezilla Lite server or SE is tailored for large-scale computer deployments. It boasts a reported cloning speed of 8GB per minute.
DriveImage XML is free disk imaging software used for creating reliable imaging and systematic backups of your hard drive. It uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Services (VSS) to create images. The images are stored in XML file format. Users can browse for images and extract files.
Among these three disk imaging utilities, AOMEI Backupper Standard is recommended for the all-around backup solutions it provides, such as incremental backup, automatic backup, backup image compression and splitting, etc.
Here you will learn a stepwise guide to make a disk image with Windows 10 disk imaging software - AOMEI Backupper Standard. Check it out now.
Step 1. Download, install, and launch AOMEI Backupper Standard. Click Backup and then select Disk Backup.
Step 2. To distinguish the disk imaging task from others, give it a new name on the right side of Task Name. Then, click Add Disk and select the disk you want to backup.
Step 3. Select the destination path for your image. You can choose to backup Windows 10 to USB, external hard drive, network location, etc.
Step 4. (Optional) Set the backup settings as follows.
>> Schedule Backup: Select daily, Weekly, or Monthly schedule mode to run the backup task automatically.
>> Backup Scheme: select a desired backup method (full/incremental/differential backup) and enable automatic backup cleanup. You may upgrade to higher editions to enjoy differential backup and auto backup deletion.
Step 5. Finally, click the Start Backup button.
Tips: π Backup disk is a headache for many people. You can get out of it and delete old backups automatically if you upgrade to higher editions. π To prepare for the worst situation when your computer won’t start normally, it’s necessary to create a bootable media or recovery environment with this software.
Disk cloning
Disk cloning is great for moving all your data when you're upgrading your hard drive. Why? Because it copies everything from one drive to another, including what's needed to start up the operating system on the new drive. Plus, the data on the new drive will be exactly the same as the old one when it was copied. It's important to note that when you clone a drive, the new one will usually be erased, and you can only use it for one cloning. If you need more copies, you'll need more drives.
Disk Imaging
Disk imaging is a smart way to avoid backup problems. It's similar to disk cloning but with an extra step - compressing files. This means you have to use special software to open and install the image onto your drive before you can use it. Unlike cloning, you can have multiple images on one hard drive. To sum up, there are three ways to back up: copy & paste, disk imaging, and disk cloning. The last two are more reliable, but which one's better depends on your needs. If you want a straightforward swap, go with cloning; if you want space-saving and customization, try imaging.
To keep your data safe, you should use disk imaging software for Windows 10. Some good options are AOMEI Backupper Standard, Windows Back up and Restore, Active Disk Image, Clonezilla, and DriveImage XML. AOMEI Backupper is a top choice because it lets you make regular backups and restore your data quickly if something goes wrong.
In addition to being a great disk imaging tool, it's also the best free disk cloning software for Windows 10. It can help you clone HDD to SSD or even clone one SSD to another.
The Standard edition is only suitable for home users. If you are a technician and want to protect unlimited computers within your company, you should pick AOMEI Backupper Technician. With the inbuilt AOMEI Image Deploy tool, you are also allowed to deploy/restore system image files on the server-side computers to multiple client-side computers over a network.