Factory recovery - Create a Custom Recovery Partition  

likes2learn said:

Would I need to create an ei.cfg etc because this is an OEM install? Maybe just something new with 1903? Could just be that I created a bad wim file, just not sure where to start troubleshooting.

Weird.

Anyway, a missing image description is the issue. I've now edited step 1.10 in this tutorial, to add description to captured image when capturing it with DISM.

You have three options, as far as I can see.

1.) Use a generic key for your Windows edition instead of selecting I don't have a product key when Windows Setup asks for it.

Generic product keys:

• Windows 10 Home Single Language: 7HNRX-D7KGG-3K4RQ-4WPJ4-YTDFH
• Windows 10 Home: TX9XD-98N7V-6WMQ6-BX7FG-H8Q99
• Windows 10 Pro: VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

Education, Enterprise and Server editions, see following support article for generic install keys: Appendix A: KMS Client Setup Keys

2.) Install Windows System Image Manager and Windows Deployment Tools as told in steps 1.1 to 1.3 in this tutorial, then see this post about how to change / add image description to your WIM file.

3.) Recapture the WIM file, this time adding the /description switch to DISM capture command as told in now edited step 1.10 in tutorial.

Kari

   Note

EDIT:

I tested this just now, 10 hours after posting the above. I captured the WIM file from an existing system without image description. Restoring from custom recovery partition worked like a charm, which makes it even more difficult to understand why you got issues.

tjmack said:

I messed up somewhere but not sure where.

I can't get the Recovery partition to work whenever I hide it from File Explorer using the Remove letter method within Disk Management. Whenever I do and reboot into Recovery to run its Wndows Installation, right after its "Setup is starting..." screen I get, "A media driver that your computer needs is missing" error. And whenever I make the partition visible again by putting a drive letter back, and then try the Recovery partition, it works.

I think its how I copied the Windows installation contained within the original ISO that has left some sort of broken file reference behind, but not sure.

Anyone got any other ideas?

Thanks for the tutorial, anyway.

I have encountered the same issue that @tjmack had:
A media driver that your computer needs is missing error during recovery process just after the initial Language/Region screen.

In the end, I have solved the issue.

Here’s how it went:

I have followed the original Kari’s guide and made a bootable MyRecovery partition in the “last” 20GB of space of my drive, mounted as R:\. Besides that, I had two other volumes, OS (C:\) and Data (D:\) on my hard drive, which was the only one installed onto my laptop.
I rebooted my laptop to MyRecovery drive and made sure that system installation process went as far as Partition Management screen. I then aborted the installation process and rebooted to the original OS again.

Here is the interesting part:

When I have unmounted “R:\” volume to make it invisible for the OS and rebooted to Recovery again, I got A media driver that your computer needs is missing error after the Language/Region settings screen, and never got further than that. Error message stated that drivers needed for the installation drive have not been found, with a dialog option for choosing the drivers manually. I tried manually feeding hdd drivers to the system, but to no success.

After I mounted the R: volume again from the main OS, recovery process went successfully again. What!?
This behavior persisted. I have tried many things, even rebuilding the Recovery partition from scratch, this time using files from Win 10 ISO image instead of the USB drive, but no luck.
Since I was sure that the issue was really about installation media mounting and drivers, I have launched Shift+F10 command line from the Language/Region screen of installation process and used diskpart list vol commands to confirm:

If “MyRecovery” partition has previously been mounted in the main OS as R:\ or any other letter, it successfully mounted during the installation process as E: being last on the drive:

Volume 0: DVD-drive______________F:
Volume 1: System Recovery
Volume 2: OS_____________________C:
Volume 3: Data___________________D:
Volume 4: MyRecovery_____________E:
Volume 5: hidden Fat 32

If “MyRecovery” partition has been unmounted from the main OS, it simply wouldn’t mount during the installation process:

Volume 0: DVD-drive______________E: <unsure if it was E or F
Volume 1: System Recovery
Volume 2: OS_____________________C:
Volume 3: Data___________________D:
Volume 4: MyRecovery
Volume 5: hidden Fat 32

I then tried manually mounting MyRecovery partition using Diskpart, and after that the installation went fine. However, I was unhappy by the fact that the user would need to manually mount the partition in case system recovery is needed.

Now, it is hard to recreate, so I am not 100% sure that it is not the previous step that has done the trick, but:
Trying to understand how the automatic mounting process treats differend kinds of partitions/drives, I have plugged in a random USB stick with some files that I had lying around and booted into recovery again. Aaaaand behold:

Volume 0: DVD-drive______________G:
Volume 1: System Recovery
Volume 2: OS_____________________C:
Volume 3: Data___________________D:
Volume 4: MyRecovery_____________E:
Volume 5: hidden Fat 32
Volume 6: USB drive______________F:

Not only MyRecovery had mounted, it kept getting mounted even after I plugged USB out and rebooted! No idea how or why, but it worked. I suspect that there is some bug in Windows installator that treats the last volume before the DVD-drive as somehow special. When I added a USB stick, the MyRecovery volume stopped being the last one and the process went fine.

So yeah, I have done only two things, manually mounted the volume during installation process using command line and simply plugged in a USB drive. One of those two has done the trick, and I am 80% sure that it is the latter.

@tjmack, could you please confirm if it works for you.
@Kari, any ideas what it might have been?

thomastg said:

I just tried your instructions and i get "This app can't run on your PC".

My apologies for a delayed reply.

For some reason, you have replaced an important command in the script with a command which is completely wrong, therefore making the script invalid.

See screenshots. In first one is the script as shown in tutorial, BCDEDIT command highlighted. In second one, your script showing how you have changed it to WINLOAD command. That is wrong, doesn't work. Click screenshots to enlarge.




Fix that, and the script works.

Kari

thomastg said:

Sorry to bother you again, but that did not work either.

I can only say, that I took your batch script, changed that one word / command, and tested it on BIOS based physical and virtual machines. Both worked without issues.

Kari

thomastg said:

BTW, i am an Admin on my machine.

"Access is denied" after each command hints that you are running the batch file from a normal Command Prompt. As told in step 3.4, it must be run from an elevated Command Prompt. You being a local admin does not mean that you can run commands requiring elevation from normal Command Prompt.

Kari