{"id":75373,"date":"2024-06-03T13:46:13","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T08:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.58.113.91\/blog\/?p=75373"},"modified":"2024-06-03T14:11:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T08:41:23","slug":"backup-winre-wim-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/backup-winre-wim-image\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Backup your WinRE Image (Winre.wim)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Windows Recovery Environment is powered by the Winre.wim image, usually located in the Recovery partition or, in some cases, in the OS partition itself.<\/p>\n

You may have to back up your Winre.wim image in some situations, e.g., before or after servicing Winre.wim, or when you want to resize the Recovery partition.<\/p>\n

This article tells you how to backup your winre.wim image using two methods.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> How to access Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)<\/a><\/div>\n

How to Backup Winre.wim<\/h2>\n

Method 1: Without disabling Windows RE<\/h3>\n

Open an admin Command Prompt<\/a> and run the following command:<\/p>\n

reagentc \/info<\/pre>\n
\"winre<\/p>\n
Note the Windows RE location from the output, which, in this example<\/strong>, is:<\/p>\n
\\\\?\\GLOBALROOT\\device\\harddisk0\\partition5\\Recovery\\WindowsRE<\/pre>\n
Now, type the following commands to backup Winre.wim from the above location to a backup folder — e.g., C:\\WinRE<\/code>.<\/p>\n
md C:\\WinRE\n\nattrib -s -h -r \\\\?\\GLOBALROOT\\device\\harddisk0\\partition5\\Recovery\\WindowsRE\\winre.wim\n\ncd \/d C:\\WinRE\n\ncopy \\\\?\\GLOBALROOT\\device\\harddisk0\\partition5\\Recovery\\WindowsRE\\winre.wim<\/pre>\n
\"winre.wim<\/p>\n
The WinRE image is now backed up to the “C:\\WinRE” folder.<\/p>\n
\n
Method 2: By disabling Windows RE<\/h3>\n
Another way to backup Winre.wim is to disable Windows RE using the Reagentc.exe command-line. Doing so moves Winre.wim to the staging area — i.e.,\u00a0 the “C:\\Windows\\System32\\Recovery” folder.<\/p>\n
To disable Windows RE, run the following command:<\/p>\n
reagentc \/disable<\/pre>\n
Now, see if Winre.wim is moved to the staging folder. To do so, run:<\/p>\n
dir C:\\Windows\\System32\\Recovery\u00a0 \/a<\/pre>\n
\"winre.wim<\/p>\n
If you see Winre.wim in that folder, backup the file to a safe location. You may need to remove the file’s hidden and system attributes to see the file in File Explorer. To do so, run the following command:<\/p>\n
attrib -s -h C:\\Windows\\System32\\Recovery\\Winre.wim<\/pre>\n
(The attrib command doesn’t produce any output if it is successful.)<\/em><\/p>\n
That’s it. You should be able to copy the file using File Explorer to your desired backup destination.<\/p>\n
Once done, re-enable Windows RE<\/strong> using the following commands:<\/p>\n
reagentc \/enable\n\nreagentc \/info\n<\/pre>\n
\"enable<\/p>\n
\n
Editor’s note<\/h3>\n