Windows 10: How to Backup Personal Files from Windows Recovery Environment

How to Backup Personal Files from Windows Recovery Environment


When a computer does not boot due to a corrupted Windows operating system rather than a hardware problem, its files remain inaccessible but intact on the hard drive.

Personal files can be recovered from the hard drive of a dead Windows from within the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).

This is a good trick to learn just in case you have no access to another working computer which can be use to recover your personal files from the hard drive of a dead Windows.

You can use a external storage drive to backup your personal files stored at the hard drive of the computer with non-booting Windows.

Here is how:

1. Connect the external storage drive to the computer with non-booting Windows.

2. Insert the Windows Installation DVD into your CD/DVD drive.

3. Configured the BIOS boot device order setting to start from a CD/DVD optical drive.





4. If prompted, press any key to start the computer from the Windows Installation DVD.

5. Choose your language settings, and then click Next button.

6. Click “Repair your computer”.





7. To access WinRE environment from Windows Vista and Windows 7 select the Windows installation you want to repair, and then click Next button.





After you click Next, the System Recovery Options menu appears.





8. To access WinRE from Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows 10 click “Troubleshoot”.





After you have click the Troubleshoot the Troubleshoot screen appears.





9. Click “Advanced options” on the Troubleshoot screen to access more WinRE recovery utility’s in “Advanced options” screen.





10. Launch the Command Prompt.

11. Within the Command Prompt type Notepad.exe and press Enter key.

12. From opened Notepad click the “Save” option from the File pull down on the menu bar.





13. This action launches Windows Explorer, from the navigation pane, navigate to the directory where your personal files are stored.





14. Right click any file or folder you want to backup and click Copy from the context menu.

15. From the Windows Explorer navigation pane, click the external storage drive to open it and paste the file or folder you have copied to the external storage drive.





That is it! After you have finished shutdown your computer.

:)

 

Data backup and recovery help thread

We get heaps of threads on this, so lets make a nice organised list of programs people can use for backing up, restoring, and recovering data.




For a quick start to this, some pointers.

1. If you formatted a drive and did NOT write to it, recovery is possible. If you installed any data over it (such as windows, or copying files to it) then you need to restore a backup, or accept that you will have lost some, most, or all of your data.

2. Backups are not perfect - for example, a virus that killed your machine could also be in your backup. try and backup your important data first, not your operating system and useless files - and store it in more than one place if possible (for example, an external hard drive AND on DVD)




Now to the programs:

Free Data recovery software
Piriform Recuva - Highly recommended by TPU users, myself included.


The following were listed by 95viper in another thread, i dont know if he's reccomending them or just listed them.
Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier A nice one.*Smile
UNDELETE 360
Free File Recovery 1.1
Glary Undelete
UndeletePlus[/QUOTE]

Paid Data recovery software



Free backup/restore software


Paid backup/restore software
Acronis True Image Home
Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 2011 (Paid)[/QUOTE]


please people, help me fill in the blanks so i can request this to get stickied. *Smile

 

Unable to access Windows Recovery Environment normally

Some entries in the bcd for the recovery environment is either corrupted or missing. To fix the problem, you;d need to rebuild the entries for the recovery environment.
Here's the steps:

1. Turn on folder options to show hidden files/folders. Open admin command then type: reagentc /disable
   - This will move 2 files from the recovery partition reagent.xml and winre.wim to C:\windows\system32\recovery
2. If you have the Windows 10 ISO, double click on it to mount to a virtual cd/dvd else If you have the Windows 10 USB then navigate to Sources folder and look for install.esd or install.wim.
3. Use 7-ZIP to open install.esd or install.wim, select and index. eg. 6 then navigate to Windows\system32\recovery. You'd see 2 files: Winre.wim and reagent.xml.
4. Remove everything from C:\windows\system32\recovery (ie. your current winre.win and reagent.xml)
5. Copy the new winre.wim and reagent.xml from the install.esd/install.wim to C:\windows\system32\Recovery
6. From admin command, type: ReAgentc /enable

Reboot to recovery. This will also fix the problem with shutdown /r /o

 

Missing Recovery Environment

Hi Alan,

Here is a link containing several useful suggestions to help you recover Windows 10. Since the error message that you got tells you to insert your Windows installation or recovery media. We suggest the perform the steps listed under
Use a recovery drive to restore or reset your PC or you can also follow the steps under
Use installation media to restore or reset your PC. Please see the link below for more details:

Recovery options in Windows 10.

Regards.