Can I Restore Windows 10 Backup to Another New Computer?

My hard drive failed this morning. Fortunately, I had run a Windows 10 backup to another hard drive before the failure. Can I restore the backup to another computer running Windows 10?

Generally, restore Windows backup to new computer, probably means that restore Windows backup image to a dissimilar hardware computer. How do we do to get things right?

Note: Dissimilar hardware computer means that the computer has a different make, model or hardware configuration compared with source computer. Of course, even if the two computers have the identical makes and models, the destination computer may have different drivers, hardware, or firmware than the source computer.

Restore system image to new computer with built-in tool

Step 1. connect the hard drive that contains the image to the new computer via USB to SATA adapter and make sure it can be detected.

Step 2. Type backup and restore in the search box and select it from the result lists.

Step 3. Click Recover system settings or your computer > Advanced recovery methods > Back up now or skip > Restart to go to WinPE environment.

Step 4. Click Next to move on.

Step 5. Click the first option if there are available image recognized. If not, click the second option and find the image on the connected hard drive.

Step 6. Follow the on-screen instructions and finish the restoration. You may be asked to install drivers during the process, just do as it said.

Yeah, Backup and Restore allows you to create system image and restore it on a computer with the same hardware. But if you want to restore it on a computer with different hardware, it does not work. Thus, you may need an alternative software to Backup and Restore. And here, I recommend you AOMEI Backupper Professional.

  • Download the program 30-day free trial to have a try.
  • Make sure you have backup your Windows 7/8/10 operating system to external hard drive. If your old computer is not bootable, you can create a bootable media at first.
  • Use bootable media to boot the new destination computer for system restore.

Now, the steps are here:

Step 1. Connect your external hard drive (with Windows system backup image stored) to the new PC and ensure it can be recognized.

Step 2. Open AOMEI Backupper Professional main window, click Restore > Select Image File to find the Windows 7/8/10 system backup image you created manually.

Step 3. Choose Restore this system backup to restore entirely, and click Next.

Step 4. Now you could preview the restore process, and the “Universal Restore” option is checked by default, and then press Start Restore to perform dissimilar hardware restore.

Now, restoring Windows backup to new computer has been completed successfully. If required, you need to reinstall some drivers owing to compatibility issue, such as Display driver, NIC driver, or Audio driver, etc.

Selective file restore from backup image

In AOMEI Backupper, you can see a utility called Explore image, which allows you to restore files from all kinds of backup images, including file backup, partition backup, system backup, disk backup. The core of this method is to create a virtual partition on the computer so that you can copy and paste the files you need.

You can open this software, click Tools > Explore Image and then follow the wizard-like interface to finish the restoration process. After that, you can copy and paste the files in the virtual partition, then go to this utility again and detach the partition from your computer.

How to create a system image backup?

Sometimes, you have to backup your Windows OS just in case, here Windows offer you Backup and Restore to backup the system image in case of disaster recovery. It’s first introduced in Windows 7 and inherited on Windows 8/8.1/10.

Create Windows backup image with Windows snap-in program:

1. click the Start button, then select Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Backup and Restore.

2. In the left pane, choose Create a system image, and then follow the steps in the wizard.

Besides, you can use the third party backup software to create system image.