Windows 10: Create Recovery Drive in Windows 10

I am trying to create a recovery drive for my new installation of Windows 10
The option to proceed ("Next") is greyed out after inserting the USB drive despite trying various perfectly suitable drives, (enough volume, correctly formatted etc)
Looks like they are not detected by the app despite being fully functional in all other respects.

 

Hello Shoe, *Smile

If the USB flash drives show in "This PC", then see if connecting them before trying to create a recovery drive may have them detected.

If not, then you could also create a Windows 10 installation USB drive that includes the recovery environment as well.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Tried it both ways still grayed out and yes it does show up in this pc

 

Is the recovery disk the same s the iso I burned to a dvd to install Windows 10?

 

No. A recovery disk is to only be able to use advanced startup options, and not able to install Windows. If you had an OEM recovery partition that you were able to Back up system files to the recovery drive, then it a recovery drive could also be used to do a factory reset.

A Windows installation USB created from a Windows 10 ISO is able to both install Windows and boot to advanced boot options.

 

Hi Shawn,

I think you can install Windows from the Recovery Drive (as long as you chose the option to include System files when you made it).

I'm sure I did a 'bare metal' install from a Recovery Drive when I was doing my video/ tutorial on Provisioning Packages, and indeed it even asks about how you want to wipe the disk (just delete the old files vs clean the drive fully). I think I also repeated it on real hardware as well as a VM.

Have a look at about 13 minutes into my video. There is an option which comes up within Advanced Startup called 'Recover from a Drive', whose description is 'Reinstalls Windows from the Recovery Drive connected to this PC.'
[youtube]WV9FR-cxFBg[/youtube] .

In my case I'd made a provisioning package so it also reinstalled Firefox and a couple of other applications for me.*Cool

 

Hey David,

Yes, you can. However, there's been many people that have not been able to successfully create a recovery drive with Back up system files to the recovery drive checked.

 

Yeah sadly you can include me on the list of people having problems with that setting. *Sad

However on the occasions when the option to copy System Files does work, I'm pretty sure you don't need an OEM Recovery Partition as suggested earlier.

When I did that video, it was Windows 10 (it may have been an Insider version - I can't remember which) clean-installed into a VM, without any pre-existing OEM software or partitions on the VM. I created the Recovery Drive and due to luck or whatever reason, the option to include System Files worked.

Then I wiped the VM disk clean again, and the Recovery Drive would still re-install Windows.

 

Tried to make a recovery USB and get a message show below:





I believe this is because I don't have a recovery partition, verified this with Partition Wizard and also disk part. I did create a W10 install iso USB, and am glad to see from this tutorial that will work if I need to boot into advanced startup options.

There may have been a recovery partition at some point but it's gone now. I purchased Win7 Home Premium upgrade disc(s) and upgraded XP Pro (retail) to x64 Win7 Home Premium. That was on an HDD, I've since upgraded it twice to two successive SSD's. Each time I used the "boot from install media" and used a backup image to put Win7 on succeeding SSD's. this may have eliminated my recovery partition.

Thanks Brink for all your work creating these tutorials, they are a huge help, wanted to post in case others get an error message like this. It's a relief knowing having an install W10 iso will essentially do the same thing, I suspected as much, but you never know with a new OS.

 

Thank you Steve. *Smile

 

hi all,

i'm having the same issue.

I was actually able to create a recovery drive with system files first time around and selected the option to remove recovery partition to free up disk space. I then purchased a smaller size usb drive and wanted to use that as a recovery drive instead. this is when I am getting the error message.

now my question is, can I simply copy and paste the files from the previous usb recovery drive to this new usb drive? if not, then can I somehow re partition the free disk space on my laptop to a recovery partition, and go from there?

I also downloaded the installation media tool from microsoft's website and apparently that's the same thing as a recovery drive? but I noticed the size of this installation media tool is smaller than the recovery drive.

 

Hello kl25, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

I'm afraid that copy and paste will not work. I'm not sure how to create a new recovery partition though.

 

Thanks! This thread has been quite helpful.

Yea I figured copy and paste won't work since the recovery drive is a boot drive. Perhaps creating a USB image of it, then putting that onto my new USB drive would work.

So what's the difference between the recovery drive and the installation media? Why is one 6gb vs 4gb?

 

A recovery disk is to only be able to use advanced startup options, and not able to install Windows. If you had an OEM recovery partition that you were able to Back up system files to the recovery drive, then it a recovery drive could also be used to do a factory reset.

A Windows installation USB created from a Windows 10 ISO is able to both install Windows and boot to advanced boot options. The larger size would be from if it was both a 32-bit and 64-bit USB.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

it's actually the recovery with system files that appears to be larger than the windows installation media tool.

so following the link you provided in an earlier reply for creating an installation media tool is good enough to boot and install windows right?

thanks for your help.