A couple of years back, I switched from MRB to GPT on my Windows PC without any major hiccups, and even updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Lately, though, my PC has been showing more frequent blue screen errors, leading to what seems to be a final Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). A tech support guy advised me to reinstall Windows, but I'm concerned about losing my data since I don't have all the installers saved. I do have my old SSD that still runs MRB and a system image backup from a couple of months ago, prior to the BSOD. Is there a way to recover Windows without wiping anything out?
3 Answers
Before diving into any changes, it's always a good idea to double-check your data backups. You definitely don't want to risk losing anything while tweaking your BIOS or disk setup. Also, if you're looking for more details, check out the FAQ thread linked in the community.
What software did you use to create that system image two months ago? You should be able to restore it to your SSD, but keep in mind this will wipe everything on the SSD during the process.
To accurately diagnose the BSOD issue, you need to gather dump files. If you can access Windows normally or even in Safe Mode, check the C:WindowsMinidump directory for crash logs. If you find any, zip that folder and use a file-sharing site to upload it for further analysis. We're aiming for multiple dump files, so if you can adjust your settings to allow small memory dumps, that would help too!
I used the built-in Windows tool to create the backup. My only worry is that the system image might still carry the blue screen issue, since it was created before this BSOD started happening. Just restoring it could bring back the same problems.