How to create window 10 USB recovery drive

How to create window 10 USB recovery drive

A Windows 10 USB recovery drive is a bootable USB device that gives you access to a number of troubleshooting and recovery tools. If your operating system doesn't want to boot anymore, or if when it does you see a bunch of errors, having a recovery drive can be very handy, as it will allow you to easily deal with those problems yourself, without having to pay someone else.

 Unfortunately, realizing that you don't have a recovery solution after your Windows is no longer functioning properly won't do you any good. You should make it beforehand, to be prepared in if (or rather, when) Windows 10 starts acting up.


If you're wondering what you need in order to make a USB recovery drive, the obvious answer is a USB memory stick. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the exact storage capacity that the device should have. According to Microsoft, it's supposed to be around 3 or 4 GB, but when I did this on my work PC it required 8 GB, and my home computer needed even more than that. At the beginning of the process, the recovery tool will analyze your system and tell you the amount of space required to create recovery drive. 

You should also know that going through with this will purge any files you have on the USB stick, so make sure that you've backed up the data or no longer need it. Lastly, you will need the password to your Windows 10 administrator account, because this tool will need admin privileges.

The first step is to click on the Start Menu button, then simply type "Create a recovery drive" (without quotes). By the time you get to "Create a rec", you should see a button at the top of the menu (in the Best matchcategory) named Create a recovery drive. Click on it. If you want the longer version, you need to right-click the Start Menu, then go to Control Panel --> System and Security, click on the blue Recovery button from the bottom-right and select the Create a recovery drive option.

Now, a new window will pop-up, telling you about the usefulness of creating a recovery drive. You should notice that there's small check box in the middle of the window with the text "Backup system files to the recovery drive". 

If checked, this option will allow you to use some advanced recovery features and even completely reinstall Windows 10, 

so I suggest that you enable it. Click the Next button and, as mentioned previously, the recovery tool will analyze your PC, displaying the amount of storage space required for the recovery files. (The system analysis could take a while, so you may need to wait for several minutes)
Once the scan is completed, plug in the USB stick that you want to turn into a recovery drive (make sure that its storage capacity is equal or higher than the one required), then select the drive in question and click Next. There's one more confirmation screen telling you (once again) that everything on your USB stick will be deleted, and if you're sure that you want to go through with this, click the Create button. 

The process will begin, and, depending on your PC's performance, it can take between 10 and 30 minutes (even more in some cases). After it's done, click the Finish button, remove the USB stick from your PC and keep it somewhere safe so that you can use it when your Windows 10 stops working properly or no longer boots.

You may need to enter your admin password to go further. In the resulting dialog box, check the box labeled Back up system files to the recovery drive.

With your recovery drive created, you’ll have to boot from it in order to use it. How your PC boots from USB varies according to your PC’s age and motherboard, but typically you can press one of the F-keys during boot to arrive at a boot selection window. From there you select the USB drive you’re using, and it should proceed to boot from the recovery drive.

When you successfully boot from it you’ll see a screen that offers a Troubleshoot option. Click on that and you will see the following: Recover from a drive, and Advanced options (and possibly Factory Image Restore, if available).



What you’ll see when you boot from the recovery drive, allowing you to either fix Windows or reinstall it completely.

The first option lets you reinstall Windows. Note that it says you will lose all your data and installed applications. This is a clean installation of Windows, not a restore from backup or something along those lines. This is the nuclear option, in other words.

The second option, which is labeled Advanced options, lets you fix your Windows installation in several ways, and brings you to the following menu:

The advanced options offer quite a few useful troubleshooting and PC repair tools.

The Advanced options menu allows you to do the following:

System Restore: Use this to revert your PC to a happier time, when things were working normally. This does not affect your data, but it does affect installed programs as it replaces the registry with an earlier version.


System Image Recovery: If you’ve used the image backup tool in Windows 10, this would be where it would come in handy. You can restore the image of your PC at the time you created the image, which includes all your data and installed programs at that time.

Startup Repair: This is sort of a “black box” in that it tries to fix whatever issue is preventing the system from booting, but it doesn’t tell you what it’s doing or, if successful, what the problem was. This is the first thing you should try, as it’s the quickest and least invasive.

Command Prompt: This can be useful for a wide array of tricks and tactics, most especially running the SFC /Scannow command to scan and fix corrupted system files. We all know the command prompt is a wizard’s toolbox, and if you know what you’re doing, the possibilities are almost endless.

Go Back to the Previous Build: Though worded a bit cryptically, this lets you revert your PC to the previous build of Windows, meaning the one before whatever update turned everything pear-shaped.