Unable to create "RecoveryDrive" in Windows 10

rwrider said:

As you should see on my other posts on this thread, I DO NOT have the GUI options to select "RECOVERY" from my control panel. The "advanced" option is missing. I suspect it is missing because the Windows 10 upgrade DID NOT setup my system with one. I am only guessing as this is beyond my level of expertise. This Dell system has a "recovery partition" that was probably accessible when Windows 7 was running. I never needed, or tried to boot to it. However, I have seen other systems that will give that choice by hitting F12 at bootup, and that choice is available to enter "recovery mode". I DO NOT get that choice! Personally, I have helped another friend who upgraded to Windows 10. She had a problem with her video driver. I was able to boot to her "recovery mode" at boot time, and was able to repair her Windows 10 installation.

Finally, I was able to see the "Advanced recovery tools". Microsoft has some corrections to make to this Windows 10 system. You MUST in the control panel select "View by: Large (or small) Icons" in order to see "recovery". It simply does NOT SHOW UP in "Category View".

But you can find Create a Recovery Drive from control panel's Category.

Control Panel->System and Security Review your system's status -> Recovery -> Create a Recovery Drive. :)

Slugger said:

But you can find Create a Recovery Drive from control panel's Category.

Control Panel->System and Security Review your system's status -> Recovery -> Create a Recovery Drive. :)

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, this path does not exist on this Win10 system.

The other option is to check your Task Bar. In the lower right, you should see the various System icons.

There should be a flag icon, either on the bar or in its overflow section (click on the caret between the System icons and the Touch Keyboard). If the flag isn't there, choose Control Panel/System & Security/Security & Maintenance (the heading itself).

The Security & Maintenance box (AKA the Action Center in older Windows versions) has a Recovery icon in its lower right corner. That will start the Recovery Media Creater application -- the one that creates the Recovery disk / stick.

Third options: Search for "Create a Recovery Drive" in My Stuff. (Don't let Cortana give you the Web search, or you'll get a Bing help page.) Choose the Control Panel options, and you're off & running.

gpstoloff said:

The other option is to check your Task Bar. In the lower right, you should see the various System icons.

There should be a flag icon, either on the bar or in its overflow section (click on the caret between the System icons and the Touch Keyboard). If the flag isn't there, choose Control Panel/System & Security/Security & Maintenance (the heading itself).

The Security & Maintenance box (AKA the Action Center in older Windows versions) has a Recovery icon in its lower right corner. That will start the Recovery Media Creater application -- the one that creates the Recovery disk / stick.

Third options: Search for "Create a Recovery Drive" in My Stuff. (Don't let Cortana give you the Web search, or you'll get a Bing help page.) Choose the Control Panel options, and you're off & running.

Following your steps, there is nothing like you explained on the task bar or its overflow. However, going to control panel>system and security>security and maintenance>recovery>create a recovery drive, I see that I can find it from the control panel category view (they did a darn good job of hiding this).

However, it still will not create a recovery USB. There is a change from my first posting. Before, it ran briefly, then blew off with a message that it wasn't able to create the recovery drive. Today, all I get is a green bar scanning forever, never get the page that shows the USB drive letter (or any choices for media).

This doesn't work, period! As I mention before, the Windows 10 upgrade from Windows 7 was not able to detect the Dell Recovery partitions that were a part of Dell's options at boot-time to enter into a recovery mode for maintenance and repair. These tools would have been for Windows 7, anyway. But, creating, and having a recovery tools is inconsistent in these upgrades. I have other systems I have upgraded to Windows 10. At least one of them will allow at boot-time to enter into a Recovery and Maintenance mode without needing to have created a RecoveryDrive.

I don't understand enough to know how the vendors created the recovery partition. I wish I did so I could correct this. Since working with upgrading to Windows 10, I have seen every combination. Either of these three outcomes I have seen. (1) Windows 7 upgrades to Windows 10 with the ability to enter into the recovery and repair mode (for Win 10) at boot time. (2) Upgrading from 7 to 10 allows me to create a recovery drive to USB. (3) Upgrading from 7 to 10, I cannot boot into the recovery and repair more, nor will the system allow me to create a recovery drive USB.

On this post, I have seen help to create and independent recovery drive from a Windows 10 ISO image. This is what I am going to be forced to do! Or, just forget the whole process and continue imaging my drives with Clonezilla, but that doesn't help in repair possibilities.

Perform a repair install Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

The problem is probably that the recovery environment is not set to the proper locations of the recovery files. Here's my story:

Nextbook Flexx 10.1 upgraded from Windows 8.1 to 10. Had two recovery partitions - 500mb created by Windows 10, and 5+gb factory with Windows 8.1. Using MiniTool Partition Wizard, I assigned drive letters to both recovery partitions - R: and T:. On the 5+gb Windows 8.1 recovery partition T: was a folder called Windows Images. Inside that folder was install.wim. This is the custom OS install file that is used to completely restore the computer. Your folder might be named something different, but install.wim is the file.

I copied the entire Windows Images folder to my C: drive. Then I deleted the 5+gb factory recovery partition. I expanded the Windows 10 500mb partition into the free space, making it almost 6gb in size. There is a hidden system folder in the Windows 10 recovery partition called Recover\WindowsRE. Inside this folder is windowsre.wim. (I might be mistaken, but the file name is close to that). That is the actual recovery environment. Leave that alone. I moved the Windows Images folder to the Windows 10 recovery partition R:, so now I have Recovery\WindowsRE and Windows Images on it. Then I shrunk the recovery partition to the smallest size it would allow me to, and expanded the C: drive partition into the free space.

Then I pointed the recovery agent to the proper locations in an elevated command prompt:
REAGENTC.EXE /setreimage /path r:\Recovery\WindowsRE

That sets the actual "restart into recovery" function to the WindowsRE path that contains windowsre.wim.

REAGENTC.EXE /setosimage /path "r:\Windows Images" /index 1

That sets the "restore OS" function to the folder containing install.wim. Notice the quotes required, because the folder name contains a space. Index 1 means the first "folder" within install.wim (which normally contains only 1 index or "folder" anyway).

REAGENTC.EXE /enable

Turns it all on.

Now, I have a working Windows 10 recovery environment which when told to restore the OS will actually re-install the factory Windows 8.1 OS. If you don't have reagentc.exe /setreimage to the folder containing the windowsre.wim file, you cannot create a recovery drive. If you don't have reagentc.exe /setosimage to the folder containing the install.wim file, you cannot add the system files to the recovery drive.

After everything is all set up, you can go back and remove the drive letter(s) from the recovery partition(s).

Your create recovery drive function is not working because reagentc.exe is not pointing to the correct locations.

I tried to Create a recovery drive and was successful. It did take a while. If your wondering I don't have a recovery partition on my drive.