How to migrate Windows Volume without loss?

Question

I'm considering migrating one of my computers that presently runs on Windows 7 to a new computer that would use Windows 10/11. Probably the most important aspect of this is being able to migrate my data without any loss of structure.

In my case I have my work product files stored on a different drive/partition than the one used to run/boot Windows. Let's call it the W: drive. The W: drive uses the NTFS file system. The nature of my work is that I make extensive use of hard links in order to be able to access the same files (which tend to be quite large) from different paths. I think if I were to simply copy the files from one drive to another the hard links would NOT be preserved. How can those hard links be preserved when migrating the files from one drive to another?

Answer 1

Kindly go through the following Microsoft reference article:

Move files off a Windows 7 PC using Backup and Restore

Answer 2

Interestingly I've been running the Backup/Restore on the Windows 7 computer in question for as long as I've used it. At the same time I've not yet ever needed to perform a restore. It does come as a big surprise to hear that this backup/restore procedure can deal with hard links. Therefore, I had chosen to exclude high level directories that are used to contain many (possibly most) of the hard links. I was trying to insure that the amount of storage needed for the backup did NOT far exceed the drive being backed up. Note: I do recognize that a hard link is just as much a file as the original file to which the link is created, which is my reason for thinking Windows 7 Backup and Restore would NOT be able to deal with hard links.

My expectation prior to posting this question was that I could create a partition image of the drive in question. In that, what I've done in the past with the ImageX.exe program from Win7 PE or the DISM program on Win10. To my surprise ImageX appears NOT to work on this kind of drive and DISM on Win7 apparently does NOT include capture capability. Is there any chance that DISM from Win10 could be used on Win7?

Also, I think I could find some cases where both the original file and the link that was created to it should be included in the backup. I surmise that in such a case I should be able to restore them. Then I'd expect to be able to verify that the restoration preserved the hard links. Does that sound like something worth trying?

I can also change the backup settings to include the previously omitted high level folders. The idea being that this would include the paths with lots of hard links in the backup. Yes?

With that said, a major concern of mine with the idea of using this method is "how can I verify that the restoration contains everything that was on the original drive? This is quite a different situation than when performing an emergency restoration because of a drive failure. In that case, you are happy about being able to restore anything.

Answer 3

Well now, it looks like my intuition was correct but I'm guilty of having been a little short-sighted. It turns out that it is quite easy to use the DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) program to do the job. As I expected it will both create (Image-Capture) and restore (Apply-Image) an image file (.wim file type) for an NTFS partition.

My senior moment came when failing to recognize that the Windows 10 version of WinPE could be booted on my Windows 7 computer. Apparently, Image-Capture is a capability that does NOT exist in the Windows 7 version of DISM.

I cannot speak to how Windows 7 Backup & Recovery might be used for this purpose. However, I think there is a lot of nuance to Windows Backup & Recovery which would make it very difficult to trust that it would have been as successful prior to having actually succeeded at doing it.