Windows 10: Recovery fails from pre-installed partition

While working on an unrelated issue with recently bought Lenovo laptop, and the manufacturer's support team recommended to perform recovery from a pre-installed partition.

While doing so, recovery process goes to about 50% and then shuts down with unexpected error and rolls back any changes.
The support team concluded, that the partition on the laptop is corrupted and they would be able to fix it for a fee...
In other words continuing this conversation with Lenovo is not really an option anymore.

I've actually checked the disk with "EasyUse Partition Master": it had found no errors to the partition itself, and was able to view recovery files, so I'm not exactly sure, what and how can it be corrupted in the first place.

Have a couple of questions:
1. Where exactly can I check what error does recovery process encounter?
2. If recovery partition is no use, would it be OK to clean it up or can it somehow be checked and restored?
3. Is there an option to create a new recovery partition with Win10 tools from the same Laptop, I'm using (Laptop is operational)?
If so, would it save existing drivers and Windows updates onto this partition or clear those out?

Lenovo support team ensured me, that Windows activation key is stored within the motherboard firmware, but I'm not too sure, whether they're using anything custom in their recovery partition, that would be lost if I use standard Windows one.

:)

 

Recovery fails from pre-installed partition

While working on an unrelated issue with recently bought Lenovo laptop, and the manufacturer's support team recommended to perform recovery from a pre-installed partition.

While doing so, recovery process goes to about 50% and then shuts down with unexpected error and rolls back any changes.

The support team concluded, that the partition on the laptop is corrupted and they would be able to fix it for a fee...

In other words continuing this conversation with Lenovo is not really an option anymore.

I've actually checked the disk with "EasyUse Partition Master": it had found no errors to the partition itself, and was able to view recovery files, so I'm not exactly sure, what and how can it be corrupted in the first place.

Have a couple of questions:

1. Where exactly can I check what error does recovery process encounter?

2. If recovery partition is no use, would it be OK to clean it up or can it somehow be checked and restored?

3. Is there an option to create a new recovery partition with Win10 tools from the same Laptop, I'm using (Laptop is operational)?

If so, would it save existing drivers and Windows updates onto this partition or clear those out?

Lenovo support team ensured me, that Windows activation key is stored within the motherboard firmware, but I'm not too sure, whether they're using anything custom in their recovery partition, that would be lost if I use standard Windows one.

 

How To: Create recovery partition.

it worked when i copied all the files of the disk to the recovery partition i created, but i had to use WinPE tab to add the entry.

Type: WIM Image (Ramdisk)
Name: Recovery
Path: Z:\Sources\boot.wim
and hit Add Entry
I tried it in VirtualBox and it worked.
At first, it would add a second "Windows 7" entry to the list, but when the installation is finished, the old one is deleted. (I formatted only C: partition)

 

Recovery fails from pre-installed partition

Hello Dave. Thanks for fast reply.

Lenovo does offer their tools to create recovery USB drive, but for some reason their tool fails as well.

I honestly didn't expect to receive a Laptop with a broken recovery partition, and don't have a habit of attempting Windows recovery while checking if it's working fine.

The process you're describing is exactly what I'm doing, and it crashes at rougly 50% every time, regardless if I choose to keep files or not.

I would fist like to diagnose why is it failing: as I've mentioned, checking disk didn't reveal any errors and partition manager can see recovery files on it.