MyRecover
3 Easy Ways to Create a Recovery Drive for Windows 10/11
How to create a recovery drive for Windows 10/11? This article provides 3 feasible ways to create a Windows 10 recovery disk on your own. And, you’re able to recover important data if your system crashes.
By Lori / Updated on December 19, 2024
Can You Create a Windows 10 Recovery Drive
It is important to have a recovery drive before your computer faces a fatal PC or disk boot failure. However, most of the time, creating a recovery drive occurs after a user's computer fails to boot.
Don’t worry, you can create a Windows 10 recovery USB drive with 3 easy ways. Please remember the following points before creating a recovery drive for Windows 10.
- An empty USB flash drive with at least 16GB of space is necessary. Be aware that this creating process will erase all existing data on the USB drive.
- The recovery drive won't back up your personal files or any non-original applications. You could back up your files with File History or free backup software like AOMEI Backupper Standard.
- While restoring the device via recovery drive, the original disk partition data on the system drive may be deleted.
- Because Windows is regularly updated to improve security and computer performance, it is recommended that you regularly re-create your recovery drive.
How to Create a Recovery Drive for Windows 10/11 (3 Ways)
In this part, you are able to create a recover drive (USB/CD/DVD) for Windows 10/11 with 3 methods. If you want a more efficient and flexible way, you can choose to use a third-party media creator – MyRecover. It allows you to create a Windows recovery USB drive to instantly restore system data if you encounter problems booting your computer.
Way 1. Create a USB Recovery Drive for Windows 10 with Recovery Drive
What Is a Windows Recovery Drive?
- A Windows recovery drive is a USB or DVD that holds a copy of your Windows 10 system. If your computer stops working, you can use this drive to reinstall Windows without losing your data. It’s helpful when your PC has problems, like not starting up. With a recovery drive, you can fix your system and use tools to repair Windows.
The Recovery Drive utility in Windows is a useful tool that helps back up critical system files required to restore your PC to its original state. It creates a USB recovery media, enabling you to restore your Windows device to its factory settings, even if you've replaced or completely wiped the hard drive.
Step 1. Plug your USB drive into your PC. In the Windows search bar, type “Create a recovery drive” and open it.
Step 2. Check the option “Back up system files to the recovery drive” if you want to include system files. This requires more space but is useful for a full restoration.
Step 3. Select your connected USB drive and click “Next” to start the process.
Step 4. This can take a while depending on the speed of your USB drive and whether you're including system files.
To Restore Windows 10 from the Recovery USB:
Once you've created a recovery USB, you can use it to restore Windows 10. Follow these steps to recover your system using the Windows 10 recovery drive:
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Connect the recovery drive to your PC and turn it on. If the computer is off, power it up.
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As the computer starts, press one of the following keys: F12, F2, F10, F11, Del, or Esc to access the boot menu.
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In the boot menu, a list of bootable devices will appear. Use the arrow keys to select the recovery drive from the list and press Enter to confirm.
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Save the changes by pressing F10 and then exit the boot menu. Your computer will now boot from the recovery drive.
Way 2. Create Windows 10 Recovery USB with Windows 10 ISO
Microsoft offers a very useful and free Windows 10 built-in tool for users to recover your system when it fails is to create installation media to reinstall Windows 10. Here's how you can create a Windows 10 recovery USB:
Step 1. Visit the official Microsoft website and download the Media Creation Tool. Run the tool and Accept the license terms.
Step 2. Select Create installation media(USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC, and then click Next.
Step 3. Choose the language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit).
Step 4. Choose which media to use: click USB flash drive. And click Next.
Step 5. Select the USB flash drive as the media to use. Start the process to create the installation media on your USB drive.
Way 3. Create Windows 10/11 Boot Drive via MyRecover (Faster)
Resetting your computer using the above methods will delete your personal data and software. When you encounter boot problems, you can also use a third-party media creator - MyRecover.
It enables you to create a bootable disk or media in Windows 11/10/8/7. The bootable disk or USB can be used as a Windows 11/10/8/7 recovery disk to boot your PC and fix boot problems with its various features. In addition, it is also a powerful data recovery software, after booting from the recovery drive, it can help you recover deleted files in Windows 10/11/8/7.
👍 PC Crashed Data Recovery Software
- Recover deleted or lost files on Windows 7, 8, 10, 11, and Windows Server, even if your PC won't boot or the hard drive crashes.
- Create a WinPE USB drive, CD/DVD, or ISO file for recovery purposes.
- Support all Windows systems (both 32-bit and 64-bit) and works in BIOS or UEFI mode.
- Recover lost Word document, Excel, PPT, PDF, PPTX, ODP, CSV, WPS files, photos, videos, audio, emails, compressed files, and other 1000+ file formats with 3 simple steps.
- Support both quick scan & deep scan to recover missing or deleted files from crashed PC and keep their original filename, directory, and path.
- Search, filter and preview the files you need and recover them while scanning, saving your time.
- Recover up to 500MB of files for free.
Let’s show how to use this MyRecover to create Windows 10 recovery USB.
Step 1. Download and install MyRecover
Run MyRecover and click "Crashed PC Recovery".
Step 2. Select a path to create
Select a way to create the WinPE bootable disk based on your needs and click "Execute".
- USB boot device: Create a bootable USB device.
- Export ISO file: Use this method to make a bootable ISO file. After exporting the ISO, you need to use a third-party burning program to burn it. Or, you can use the ISO to boot some virtual machines or burn them to other devices.
- Burn to CD/DVD: Create a bootable CD/DVD.
"Add Drivers" allows you to manually add other necessary drivers to the bootable drive so that more devices are available.
Step 3. Format the USB flash drive
After choosing the way and starting, an information window will pop up. The USB flash drive needs to be formatted and all data on it will be lost. If you confirm, click Yes to continue.
Step 4. Create a bootable USB disk
The creation operation will begin and you can check it. The progress of creating a WinPE bootable USB drive will take a few minutes. Once finished, you will receive a success message. Also, you will be notified of the steps to boot from a bootable disk and recover data from crashed PC.
Now you can connect a bootable USB drive or CD/DVD drive to the crashed PC > Press F12, F2, F10, F11, Del or Esc to enter BIOS > Change the boot order of the PC in BIOS > Restart the PC and select the correct boot media > Press F10 to save changes and exit.
Then you will see the main interface of MyRecover. You can make use of its features to recover deleted and lost data. It supports you to recover 500MB of data for free.
🔥 Recover data: MyRecover automatically scans the selected drive to find all recoverable files.
The Quick Scan looks for recently deleted files, while the Deep Scan searches for other missing files.
Here are two ways to quickly locate them:
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From Sidebar Directories: Expand the Deleted Files, Recycle Bin, or Other Missing Files folders and navigate to the original location of the deleted files on the selected drive.
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Search or Filter Data: To narrow down your search, select the "Documents" data type as your filter. You can also type the file name or extension in the search box to find specific files or folders. Additionally, you can filter by date (e.g., today, yesterday, last 7/30 days) or size (e.g., <128KB, 128KB–1MB, 1MB–512MB).
Summary
It's a good idea to have recovery media before your computer suffers a fatal system failure. This article provides 3 practical methods to help you create a recovery drive for Windows 10.
Among these 3 ways, the most effective method is to use MyRecover to create Windows 10 recovery USB or CD/DVD. Additionally, it supports you to recover crashed computer data.
To prevent future loss of valuable data, try this free backup software for Windows AOMEI Backupper Standard. Whenever your system fails to boot, it can help you easily perform system restore from disks.
FAQs
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