For what it's worth, for what you are probably trying to do, DISM might actually be the better option. You can capture an image of just your C:\
drive into a WIM file, this is done like this:
dism /Capture-Image /CaptureDir:C:\ /ImageFile:"D:\backup\YourFileNameHere.wim" /Name:CBackup2023OrWhatever
This will take the entire partition that holds C:\
and create a WIM file - this can then be natively mounted by Windows and explored like any other mounted filesystem. As far as I understand, it handles symlinks well and may even preserve them properly. Consider reading the link at the end for more inormations regarding WIM files and symlinks.
Alternatively, you can image the physical drive, including partition tables, recovery partitions, anything - but that will of course require there to be a second physical drive to save the file to. This is called an FFU ("Full Flash Utility", not really relevant here) image.
An FFU is captured like this:
dism /Capture-FFU /ImageFile:"D:\backup\YourFileNameHere.ffu" /CaptureDrive:\\.\PhysicalDriveX /Name:CBackup2023OrWhatever
You will need to replace the X after PhysicalDrive with the physical drive number of the drive you will be imaging - it is often 0 but do not assume and check it using diskpart
:
C:\>diskpart
Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.964
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: COMPUTERNAME
DISKPART>list vol
Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 C SYSTEM NTFS Partition 476 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 1 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System
Volume 2 NTFS Partition 477 MB Healthy Hidden
DISKPART>sel vol 0
Volume 0 is the selected volume.
DISKPART> detail vol
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
* Disk 0 Online 476 GB 1024 KB *
Read-only : No
Hidden : No
No Default Drive Letter: No
Shadow Copy : No
Offline : No
BitLocker Encrypted : Yes
Installable : Yes
Volume Capacity : 476 GB
Volume Free Space : 274 GB
Short recap, start diskpart, get a list of all volumes (list volume
; every keyword can be shortened down to at least 3 letters), note the number of the one that has your desired drive letter (like C), select it (select volume 0
), then show the detailed information (detail volume
- the 0 is not needed as volume 0 is already selected), which shows it living on Disk 0.
You can also go to Disk Management for a more graphical overview if that is preferred.
In my experience you will need to get into a recovery environment to be able to perform those images, however. Normally all it takes is to hold the Shift
key and then click through the usual steps to restart Windows - you will then have a few menus to click through, you will want the option that gives you the command line.
You can also boot into a Windows install USB stick and hit Shift+10.