Creating a Recovery Drive in 1903?

Bree · 21 Jul 2019

Prompted by a recent thread... Fail to reload from recovery drive after erasing C: ...I thought I'd create a Recovery Drive usb to aid investigation.

Create Recovery Drive in Windows 10

Has anyone else tried making a recovery drive usb with the 'include system files' option in 1903? If so, can they confirm that it takes an extraordinary two and a half hours from formatting the usb to finishing copying the files across?

Not quite believing this was normal, I'm trying again on a fast machine (i7/SSD/USB3 ports). The 'copying system' stage seems to be what takes all the time with the same (slow) result. It's not clear what's taking the time, but there seems to be a lot of cpu activity with very little disk activity.

Creating a Recovery Drive in 1903?-making-recovery-drive-1903.png

At current rate of progress it's a little faster, but not by much. ~~I estimate it will have taken an hour and a half by the finish~~. It took an hour and ten minutes to complete.

I'm sure this was a much faster process in earlier Windows versions. What could have changed?

NavyLCDR · 21 Jul 2019

I tried it a while ago, I think on a build prior to 1903 and it did take forever. I don't even bother with anything related to Windows built-in recovery or reset stuff. I'll either restore a Macrium image or do a clean install of vanilla Windows 10.

Bree · 21 Jul 2019

I think the last time I tried was in 1703 (maybe 1607). It's always been a bit slow, but I'm sure it was faster back then. Maybe MS have changed the way the system files are stored in the WinSxS store?

I tried this time to help in answering a thread. Needless to say, by the time I'd made the recovery usb it was far too late to reply.

storageman · 22 Jul 2019

I think I also tried it on 1709, it took forever and I have a pretty fast system. I'm with @NavyLCDR on this, its not worth it. MR or AOMEI or a dreadful clean install. Backup redundancy is my go to model.

MR X · 01 Aug 2019

I just did this the other day, and it took over 2 hours. I just assumed it was because I did it on a low spec ThinkPad 10 tablet, but perhaps it's normal. It took 3 tries to complete because it kept getting to 60-70% and closing on me.

jdc1 · 01 Aug 2019

At work we never try the recovery drive. It's much easier for us to download the Media Creation Tool and make the installation media (which we do with each major release). I keep 2 in my toolbag for use with both installing and repairing W10.

Bree · 01 Aug 2019

The only valid argument for making a recovery drive is if you have an OEM pre-installed Windows 10 with custom OEM apps and drivers. The 'system files' included on the recovery drive will also include all the OEM customisations. It is effectively a 'factory reset' recovery drive.

shockwaveriderz · 01 Aug 2019

Yes it takes forever and a day....