How to restore your PC with a USB Recovery Drive

one of the first things we recommend doing after setting up your windows pc is creating a recovery drive which lets you repair or recover your system later if it won't start up to create a recovery drive you'll need a spare usb flash drive that's at least eight gigabytes in size once you've connected it to your pc open file explorer then select your usb drive from the left to check if you have any existing files on it if you do make sure you move or copy them elsewhere as they'll be erased during the setup process check out our video on organizing your files and folders for details on how to copy and move stuff around once you've moved all the existing data off the drive type the word recovery in the search box on the taskbar then select create a recovery drive from the results when creating the drive you can also copy your system files to it at the same time which you can use to reinstall windows if you ever need to this is especially useful if your hard drive fails and you need to reinstall to another drive so we recommend keeping this option checked once you've made your choice click next to continue windows will then search your pc and list all the available drives so you can select the one you want to use remember everything on the drive will be erased so if you're ready click next again followed by create at the final warning to start the process this will format the drive and copy the recovery utilities which will take several minutes to complete so it's best to let it run and come back later when it's done click finish to close up then eject the usb drive by clicking the little arrow icon on the taskbar's notification area and selecting the usb icon where you can eject your usb drive safely make sure you label the recovery drive and store it in a safe place in future if your computer has a problem and won't start up you can boot it from the recovery drive by connecting it to your pc then either powering on or restarting your computer if the recovery drive doesn't load automatically on startup you'll need to access your pc's boot menu and set your computer to boot from the usb drive instead of the hard drive to do that you'll need to restart your pc again and press a specific key when the initial startup screen appears this will vary between manufacturers but is usually the escape key or one of the function keys along the top row of your keyboard note that you might need to tap the key repeatedly a few times to get the timing just right to get to the boot menu on tablet devices you'll need to hold down a specific button on the device while turning it on check your computer's manual for the correct procedure or do a web search for your specific device model note that the boot menu will look a little different depending on your device manufacturer but once you're there you should see an option to boot from a usb device which should load the recovery drive after that once it's loaded select your keyboard layout from the list after which you'll have the option to troubleshoot your pc or shut it down select troubleshoot to view the available recovery tools from here you can reset your pc which reinstalls windows and removes all your apps but lets you keep your personal files if you want to we've got a separate video on how to reset your pc so check it out if you haven't already if you backed up your system files to the recovery drive you can also reinstall windows from it this option differs from resetting your pc as it wipes everything from the drive including your personal files and restores your pc back to its original state when you first bought it it also allows you to reinstall windows to a new drive if your existing hard drive fails more recovery tools click advanced options below starting from the top is system restore which lets you recover windows to an earlier point in time without affecting your personal files check out our separate video on system restore for more details you can also recover your pc using a system image which is a copy of your entire drive and all the apps files and settings image recovery has been phased out in windows 10 in favor of the reset pc and file history features so we won't cover it in this video other tools you can access include a startup repair which can find and fix startup problems automatically as well as a command prompt which lets you enter keyboard commands manually so is useful for advanced users and support professionals note that these options are also accessible when windows starts up without the need for a recovery drive check out our video on advanced startup options for a more detailed look at these tools as well as a few additional ones to close the recovery tools tap or click the back button on the upper left twice to return to the main screen then select the option to turn off your pc so make sure you create a recovery drive and keep it handy in case you ever need to recover your system

Channel: Windows Know How

Views: 349,696

Keywords: Windows, technology, education, Windows 10, computers, PC, recovery drive, usb recovery drive, restore windows 10, restore windows 10 from usb recovery drive, restore Wind, reinstall windows 10, recovery, windows 10, OS, Tips, Tech, How to, Laptop, Tutorial, Computer, Microsoft, Step by step, Operating system

Id: m66F_64eUYk

Length: 4min 49sec (289 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 17 2021