How do I make an exact recoverable copy of a hard drive?

Question

I'm looking to buy a new laptop, which comes with Windows 10 preinstalled.

I'm planning to remove it and install ubuntu right away. But I'm afraid that I might run into any driver issues, so I want to somehow make an exact copy of the whole drive (bit by bit), and in case I do want to return the laptop, I'd be able to recover the drive to the condition I got it from the store with.

How can I do this?

Habeel Mazhar · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-28T16:52:26.063

-1

You can first try live without installing or dual booting with ubuntu before deleting windows completely.

Or you can follow the steps below to create a system image backup referenced from this step by step guide.

Steps for creating backup:

Open Control Panel.
Click on System and Security.
Click on Backup and Restore (Windows 7).
On the left pane, click the Create a system image link.
Under "Where do you want to save the backup?" select the On a hard disk option.
Using the "On a hard disk" drop-down menu, select the storage to save the backup.
Click the Start backup button.

edited Sep 28 '18 at 16:52

answered Sep 24 '18 at 17:33

Habeel Mazhar

198

Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – Thomas Ward Sep 26 '18 at 13:42

How do I make an exact recoverable copy of a hard drive?

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