create recovery partition with restore option with Fn key

reddwarf4ever · 13 Jan 2016

Is it possible to create a recovery partition or image on a PC, which could recover the PC using a Fn key during boot up ?

I have a PC with a recovery partition which is for vista, which is now obsolete now Imhave moved up to Windows 10 via Windows 7.... never want to recover to vista...

would love over to create my own recovery partition, where pressing e.g. Fn11 during startup invokes the recovery process.....maybe this is too difficult...there is a program called AOMEI OneKey Recovery which promises to do such, or so it looks...

mrgeek · 13 Jan 2016

Acronis True Image 2016 does this. You enable Startup Recovery Manager and you can hit F11 during the boot process to recover a disc image. Adds about 30 sec to boot process before it defaults to OS startup.

cereberus · 13 Jan 2016

Macrium Reflect Free is good for this.

You can install it as a dual boot option, so you do not even need a recovery drive (exceopt if hard disk fails, or is badly corrupted). You just boot PC and select Macrium.

reddwarf4ever · 13 Jan 2016

I have acronis true image 2016, didn't realise this as possible, will look for enable recovery manager, must be in options somewhere....does it just need the recovery image, assume no need to make a seperate partition...
what about AOMEI OneKey Recovery apparently this is freeware, wondered if anyone had tried it....

cereberus · 13 Jan 2016

reddwarf4ever said:

I have acronis true image 2016, didn't realise this as possible, will look for enable recovery manager, must be in options somewhere....does it just need the recovery image, assume no need to make a seperate partition...
what about AOMEI OneKey Recovery apparently this is freeware, wondered if anyone had tried it....

Use Acronis as you have it - far superior to AOMEI.

You should create a usb recovery drive, and make recovery image to an external usb drive (hard drive is best).

mrgeek · 13 Jan 2016

reddwarf4ever said:

I have acronis true image 2016, didn't realise this as possible, will look for enable recovery manager, must be in options somewhere....does it just need the recovery image, assume no need to make a seperate partition...

See screen cap. Once you activate, next time you start up, black screen will appear giving you options to hit F11 to boot to Acronis Recovery with option to recover image on ext drive, no partitioning needed (worst way to back up is on same disk !). If you do nothing, it will revert to normal Windows start up in 30 secs or if you're testing the Acronis interface, there's an option to exit to normal Windows start up.

create recovery partition with restore option with Fn key-capture.jpg

reddwarf4ever · 11 Feb 2016

mrgeek said:

See screen cap. Once you activate, next time you start up, black screen will appear giving you options to hit F11 to boot to Acronis Recovery with option to recover image on ext drive, no partitioning needed (worst way to back up is on same disk !). If you do nothing, it will revert to normal Windows start up in 30 secs or if you're testing the Acronis interface, there's an option to exit to normal Windows start up.

thank you

jimbo45 · 06 Jun 2016

Hi there
I'd tend to caution against these "One Key" recovery systems for these reasons

1) Key is accidentally pressed at Boot -- if the image is an old one then you've wiped a perfectly good machine. Don't say this never happens - I've done it myself in the past by accident and I consider myself reasonably OK with computers -- a complete noob will probably get confused seeing a menu at boot.

2) If (and it sometimes happens) the restore gets hosed up you are stuck with an inoperable machine.

Personally if you need to do a restore it's to my mind much better to stick in a USB containing say Free Macrium or equivalent and restore that way -- you know when you want to restore and don't do it by accident.

Note It's even worse on a laptop since you have to press a key to get the boot menu - and it's EASY to make a mistake and press the wrong key.

YMMV of course --just my view though -- and I learned the hard way.

Incidentally when backing up always have MORE than one image -- I/O devices do get broken (fortunately it's rare but does happen). You can guarantee when you really NEED the restore your single Image will be the one that fails !!!!!.

Cheers
jimbo