A Data Saving Question Before A Windows Reset

(Forgot this: Windows 25H2 (OS 26200.8246)

A day or so ago, my computer stopped using WiFi. I do hope it was not whomever managed to evade what I thought was adequate protection and fouled up quite a few items. A lot of time spent with two very fine Dell support agents before that who restored what seemed to who got me back, and that seemed to end the episode. Suddenly, however, I lost my WiFi connection; I got back on line while using Ethernet, and another agent told me to do a System Reset. He was so thorough that at least twice during yet another long session, he spoke with a Level Two agent to get higher-level information he needed to complete our session.

There is a discrepancy between the advice on the Windows page where you do the reset and are told to save all data, and the on-line pages that just say to save data. I have Macrium Reflect, which is set to do a full backup for both C:\ and D:\ drives; would that suffice? If not, what do you recommend.

At least, I have been dealing with fine support agents, including one earlier today at Canon, who figured out how to change my printer from WiFi to Ethernet. In all the years that I have been on line, this has been much worse that the only time I recall, when someone blocked my email access. I have added some new security programs which are going to impost a monthly fee for their constant scanning. I am rather certain that this is due to changes in the on-line world that I have read about in the newspapers, such as brokers grabbing lists of whom a user has contacted you, and using that information to create scams and other such bad misinformation.

(I have again been told by what is apparently from IA here to change the format, etc. of what I write. Sorry, but given my education and the large amount of published on-line information I have posted, a book and a training manual I wrote, etc. I know a very large amount of knowledge of the proper use of the English language; your "knowledge" thereof neither impresses me nor do I follow it.)

It depends exactly on what do you mean by "system reset" and what guiadance you've been given.
A factory reset, provided you have the required media or the vastly superior clean install will often delete all your files, so you need to restore them from backups afterwards.

I'm however wandering if such a problem requires a reinstall or can be solved somehow else, have you tried to update your drivers? Can you try the wifi with other devices to rule out a faulty access point?

Not Myself said:

I have Macrium Reflect, which is set to do a full backup for both C:\ and D:\ drives; would that suffice?

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That's not a backup, that's an image. If you clean install, it'll just restore the old (broken) install and overwrite the new one. Unless you have all the things you need perfectly separated into the two drives, you could use that to restore D and throw away the one from C.

@Alejandro85

You have not considered opening a Macrium Reflect image with File Explorer and restoring individual folders and files by simply copying them.

You have MR but have you been using it? If you have then do an MR image restore to a date prior to when the wi-fi issue started.

If not, then do an image copy of the System (1st 3 or 4 partitions), and the D:\ drive.

First step in trying to fix the wi-fi problem would be to use the device manager, go to Network Adapters, and check for updates to the wi-fi drivers. If no update then delete them and restart the PC with an ethernet connection. Windows will reinstall the drivers.

The system reset, either an install or fresh install, will wipe out all your installed programs. One option is a Repair Install which will retain all your installed apps. None of these processes should alter the D: drive but it does not hurt to have a backup.

Given

I do hope it was not whomever managed to evade what I thought was adequate protection and fouled up quite a few items.

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- it sounds as if you think you 'may' have been hacked or suffered from malware... or is it just that several things seemed to go wrong?

Depending on what you believe has happened, the appropriate action will be quite different.

E.g. if rookit/trojan/ - and it's a serious case- then a wipe and clean install, or wipe and restore your O/S partitions etc from a disk image created BEFORE this happened.

Which begs a basic question- do you in fact have such an image safely stored on something not currently connected to your system or not?
Just having a copy of Macrium Reflect or whatever and not having used it previously won't give you a recovery option now.

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However.. if the problem is NOT malware but some for of corruption...then

a. do the usual routine disk a file system checks
b. try using an appropriate System Restore point.

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Now considering your data before you wipe your disk, if that's what you decide is necessary, for example: if you already have a recent disk image of all relevant partitions, then the data is backed up on that image to that date. Any data changed after that date would need to be backed up before wiping your disk.

At present your situation is a little vague in terms of what has led to this problem.
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I have added some new security programs

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Using multiple programs can cause problems, depending on what they are. For most people Defender does a pretty good job.