Does your Windows 10 or 11 device continuously fail to boot and the Windows Recovery Environment doesn’t show up to help you fix the problem? If that’s what’s happening to your PC right now, you’re out of luck. Your Windows OS has been corrupted or severely damaged and, naturally, most conventional recovery methods can’t help you. Thankfully, there is still hope. In this article, we will show you how to create a Windows Recovery Drive and use it to restore your Windows operating system, 10 or 11. Without further ado, let’s jump straight into it.
Creating a Windows Recovery Drive
You need to make a Windows Recovery Drive before you can restore your Windows computer to working other. For that, you would need a USB drive with at least 16 GB capacity and a functioning Windows device. Make sure your USB drive is empty before using it to create a live recovery drive. If your USB drive contains any data, we recommend you transfer it to other safe media drives before proceeding with the live drive creation. Once everything is settled, follow the steps below to create a live Windows Recovery Drive:
- Plug the USB drive in to a functioning Windows 10 or 11 device.
- Now, click on the “Search Bar” and type “Recovery drive.”
- Once the “Recovery Drive” app shows up in the search results, click on it. The computer will ask if you’re willing to let the app make changes to your device. Click on the “Yes” button to open the app.
- The Recovery Drive window will appear with the “Create a recovery drive” message. Click on the “Backup system files to the recovery drive” check box and then click on the “Next” button.
- Now, a list of drives and devices connected to your PC will appear. Click on your USB drive from the list of connected devices, and click on the “Next” option.
- In the next step, a new warning message will appear reminding you that everything stored in the USB drive will be deleted if you proceed any further. Make sure your USB drive doesn’t have any important files. If you want to proceed, click on the “Create” button. With this, the process to make the recovery drive will initiate. It might take a while so please wait patiently.
- Once the recovery drive creation is complete, click on the “Finish” option and disconnect your USB drive from the computer.
Restore a Windows 10 or 11 System via the Recovery Drive
Now you have the Windows Recovery Drive ready and can employ it to rescue a malfunctioning Windows OS. Here’s how:
- Connect the recovery USB drive to the computer with a malfunctioning Windows OS.
- Now, restart the computer. Before your PC boots, keep pressing the “F8/ F9/ F11/ F12” key to boot into the BIOS. The exact function key you need to press depends on your PC manufacturer. Check their official website or contact the support team to get the exact information.
- Choose the recovery USB drive in the BIOS boot manager and press the “Enter” key to confirm. Once it’s done, press the “Esc” key to get out of BIOS and boot using the live USB drive.
- Next, once the computer successfully boots, select your country/ language and set the time to continue.
- In the next window, click on the “Recover from the drive” option.
- Click on “Just remove my files”.
- Now, at the final step, your computer will issue some info on what will happen if you continue with the procedure. Here, click on the “Recover” button.
Now, the Windows operating system will notify you that it’s recovering your PC, which will take some time. Once the process is finished, the new Windows OS will be officially reinstalled in your computer, restoring your broken OS. Now, you will need to go through a short setup period. After the setup is finished, your sign-in screen will appear. And voilà, you have successfully rescued your Windows 10 or 11 operating system.
