Scheduling System Image Backup in Windows 8.1

Scheduling System Image Backup in Windows 8.1 

While it is not recommended to schedule System Image Backups in Windows 8.1, you might prefer to do so if you have more than one external hard drive dedicated for backups.
In such case, you can manually create one backup on the first drive (for example, drive F:) and leave it untouched forever - this will be your fail-safe backup right after installing and updating Windows and necessary software (you should use File History for backing up your personal files and folders). Then schedule a PowerShell command that creates and updates backup on a different physical drive (for example, drive E:) on weekly basis.

To use this advanced scenario, use keyboard shortcut WINDOWS KEY+Q to open Search everywhere, type schedule and click Schedule tasks.

Right-click Task Scheduler Library and select Create Basic Task from the menu.

In the Create Basic Task Wizard window, type Name for the new task. Description is optional.
Click Next after you're done.

Set Task Trigger to Weekly and click Next. If programs and apps on your Windows device change rarely, you can select Monthly instead.

 

Because creating a system image slows your PC down for quite some time, choose a start time when your machine is most probably not in heavy use.
Click Next again.

Leave Start a program selected for Action and click Next.

Type powershell.exe into Program/script field and then copy and paste the following line into Add arguments (optional) field:
wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:E: -include:C: -allCritical -quiet
Replace drive letter E: in the -backupTarget argument with the appropriate one for your backup destination disk if necessary.
Because Windows 8.1 always assigns drive letter C: to system drive (the one where Windows is installed), changing this one is not needed.
The -allCritical option includes everything (additional partitions/volumes or drives) required to start and run Windows properly in the backup. I guess you all know what -quiet means.

In the final screen of Create Basic Task Wizard, tick the Open the Properties dialog for this task when I click Finish check box and click Finish

In the Security options section of Task Properties window, select the Run whether user is logged on or not option and tick the Run with highest privileges check box. Then click Change user or Group button next to the When running the task, use the following user account field.

Type system into Enter the object name to select field and click Check Names. The name turns into all capital letters and gets underlined. Click OK.

Back in the Task Properties window, open setting tab and enable the Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed option. This ensures that the backup is always created.

Finally, click OK to save the task changes. Make sure that the destination drive is always connected during the scheduled time.

To verify that the backup task runs and finishes properly, open WindowsImageBackup folder on the target drive. There should be a subfolder with your computer's name - open it and then open another subfolder, Logs, and see if the Backup_error_<date and time>.log file is empty. If it is, the backup finished successfully.
Please note that you might have to use administrative privileges to open the folders for the first time.

Another way is to check backup log in Event Viewer. Use keyboard shortcut WINDOWS KEY+X to open Quick Links menu and click Event Viewer. Alternatively, right-click or tap and hold the Start tip on Taskbar.

Expand Applications and Services Logs, Microsoft, Windows, Backup items and click Operational. You'll then see the list of events related to backing up your device. Here are some most common backup events in Windows:

• Event ID 1 - The backup operation has started.
• Event ID 4 - The backup operation has finished successfully.
• Event ID 5 - Backup started at <date and time> failed with following error code <number>.
• Event ID 8 - Backup cancelled.
• Event ID 14 - The backup operation has completed. This event appears even if backup was cancelled or did not finish successfully.
• Event ID 20 - Backup started at <date and time> failed as another backup or recovery is in progress.
• Event ID 50 - Backup failed as required space was not available on the backup target. Free up some disk space on the target drive or increase available disk space on Windows disk.