system backup and restore after upgrade from 8.1

I have an Acer Aspire Swich 10 E computer which came with Windows 8.1. After many many hours of downloading, I have upgraded it to Windows 10 for free. I now wish to make a system backup so that I can restore Windows to its present pristine state should that be necessary or desirable.

When I run Acer Recovery Management to create a backup, the only options are "Factory Default," which presumably is Windows 8.1, and "Drivers and Applications".

I tried using Acronis True Image, but it doesn't see my C: drive, which presumably is on the 64 GB SSD. It sees the 500 GB HDD, the Acronis thumb drive and the drive I intend to use for backup. I understand that the factory default is stored on a hidden partition, presumably on the SSD, so I didn't expect to see that.

How can I restore Windows 10 without first reinstalling 8.1 and then reupgrading?

I also want my backup to be on my media, not on some cloud or pie in the sky!

Oh, and of course, at a later date, I wish to make a backup with my software installed and all the bloatware removed.

Accepted answers

IronFly

a system image is what you need, system image is a 1:1 copy of your actual HDD state and can be loaded from a windows 10 installation media.

so, first of all, i would create a windows 10 bootable media:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209

follow onscreen instruction and have a 8GB USB flash drive ready.

then have a big USB flash drive (32GB) or and external HDD, press windows logo key + x

click on control panel

click on Backup and restore (windows 7)

connect your USB flash drive or external HDD

click on the left side, Create a system image

follow screen instruction

All comments

IronFly

a system image is what you need, system image is a 1:1 copy of your actual HDD state and can be loaded from a windows 10 installation media.

so, first of all, i would create a windows 10 bootable media:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209

follow onscreen instruction and have a 8GB USB flash drive ready.

then have a big USB flash drive (32GB) or and external HDD, press windows logo key + x

click on control panel

click on Backup and restore (windows 7)

connect your USB flash drive or external HDD

click on the left side, Create a system image

follow screen instruction

PeterDuke

Thanks for your reply. I was not aware of that backup and restore facility. It is a solution, although I would prefer not to have to install a clean Windows first, since that is time consuming. The tool gives me the option of creating a restore DVD (but not a thumb drive), but I do not have an optical drive on this computer, nor an external one. The restore function does not seem to allow extraction of individual files from the backup either, but that is no deal breaker. That is why I was hoping to be able to use Acronis. I wonder why it could not see the C: drive. Perhaps it is an EFI system partition, and the Acronis boot disk (linux, I think) doesn't recognise it.

Post Script

A quicker way to restore, if Windows is broken, may be to use Alt-F10 after reboot to restore my original system (Windows 8.1 in my case) and then use Backup and Restore to restore my image. I presume Win 8.1 has one and is compatible.

IronFly

you don't need to do a clean install, the windows 10 bootable media is only needed to load your system image, the system image will be copied to your HDD/SSD and you will have your OS ready without the need to install anything.

a system image is a copy of your system as Acronis will do.

the microsoft tool will absolutly gives you the ability to make a bootable USB, you just need to have it one ready when prompted what to do with the downloaded files.

the system image can also be mounted in another PC with windows 8.1 and up, and you can recover files from it.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/34630/how-to-recover-specific-files-from-a-windows-system-image/

http://www.howtogeek.com/192115/what-you-need-to-know-about-creating-system-image-backups/

PeterDuke

The link you gave me in your first post was to the Media Creation Tool. As As I understand it, you can do two things only with this:

(1) Upgrade this PC to Windows 10 from the internet

(2) Create a bootable Windows installation disc.

I don't see how the latter will allow me to restore a backup of the system drive located on some other media. Is that an option you see once you commence installing Windows?