Windows 10: Find Reset Recovery Image Location in Windows 10

How to: Find Reset Recovery Image Location in Windows 10

How to Find Location of Recovery Image used to Reset Windows 10


Information If you're having problems with Windows 10 on your PC, you can try to refresh, reset, or restore it.

When you reset your PC, it will remove everything and reinstall Windows 10 to start over completely with a clean install.

When you reset Windows 10 you may be prompted to insert or connect your Windows 10 recovery drive if there is an issue with the default Windows image or if there's not an OEM factory recovery image present.

If you create a reset[/b] of Windows 10. A reset recovery image is basically like having your installation media always connected and ready to use to reset your PC with.


This tutorial will show you how to find and see the location of the currently registered reset recovery image you created in Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.



Here's How:

1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. In the elevated command prompt, copy and paste the command below, and press Enter. (see screenshots below)
*Arrow reagentc /info
3. If there is currently not a reset recovery image registered, then you will see this below to the right of Recovery image location.


Note It'll only show a location for Recovery image location if you created a custom reset image. Otherwise, Windows will use the default image in the C:\Recovery folder that's only listed for Windows RE location.





4. If there is a reset recovery image registered, then you will see this below to the right of Recovery image location showing you the full path of the folder containing the install.wim file registered as the recovery image.


Note It'll only show a location for Recovery image location if you created a custom reset image. Otherwise, Windows will use the default image in the C:\Recovery folder that's only listed for Windows RE location.








Tip To help make sense of the location path above, you can open Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).

Looking at the displayed path above, the ResetRecoveryImage folder is saved to partition 1 on hard disk 1. In this example, partition 1 on hard disk 1 is the F: drive.





This gives you the full path as F:\ResetRecoveryImage.






5. When finished, you can close the command prompt if you like.




That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Reset Windows 10
• How to Create a Recovery Image used to Reset Windows 10

:)

 

Windows 10 reset

See if the reset recovery image is correct:

Reset Recovery Image - Show Location in Windows 10

 

During refreshing windows 10 is there any loss of updated version (Feature update to Windows 10, version 1607) of windows ?

• How to Show Location of Recovery Image used to Reset Windows 10

Reply back with the location of the recovery image, it should tell us that reset would remove it or not.

 

Hello there. I installed Windows 10 from ISO, it is a pure clean install, not an OEM installation.
My "Recovery Image Location" is empty. But i am able to Reset PC, how does this happen? I wonder where is my Reset Media? Thanks @Brink

 

Hello isimsizkullan, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

What does the reagentc /info command show for you?

 

Thanks for quick reply.
Here is the output.
Code: Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration Information: Windows RE status: Enabled Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: efb877cf-c514-11e5-bedc-dc38f4d2685c Recovery image location: Recovery image index: 0 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0 REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.[/quote]

 

That indicates that you didn't add a reset recovery image of your own, but Windows will use its default image included during installation for a reset. *Smile

 

I wonder what is the location that default image? *Smile

 

It's located in the protected hidden C:\Recovery folder.

 

Can i see that file with live linux systems?
Thank you, that means much to me.

 

I haven't tried it, but it would hurt to try and see if you are able to or not. *Smile

 

I am gonna try and will post here. Thanks.

 

I found that but not in C:\ partition, it was in "System Reserved" partition.
sda1 for System Reserved and sda2 for C:\, in my case

File location: /mnt/sda1/Recovery/WindowsRE/Winre.wim

But it is only 284 MB.

I am trying to find out if there is a difference between clean installation and Reset PC. And in that case clean installation looks more clear. How come just 284 MB is gonna install the whole system from nothing?

 

Hi isimsizkullan,
I've been trying to find the answer for the same question for couple weeks. With no success, however.
I did reset PC on my laptop yesterday and it did not even asked for a recovery image. I know that I have no recovery partition on the drive (bought mSata SSD) nor registered recovery (same as this guy: Reset Windows 10 - Page 3 - Windows 10 Forums )

Reset worked very well but there was a one difference between clean install from the USB Stick:
- a driver for the USB controller was not installed properly when I did "reset PC", other drivers were installed automatically. When I used clean install from the USB stick I had no problem. It could be because of the internet connectivity during install (LAN).

I may try it again without the internet.

 

OK, here it is:
How Windows 10 achieves its compact footprint | Windows Experience Blog

No more recovery partitions in Windows 10 and other storage gains - gHacks Tech News

If the system is "good enough" then no image is needed and system is rebuild from the current files (including windows 10 updates !)