Windows Recovery X Drive
Thomas Merino
Went to create a recovery USB drive on windows 11. After a while I was prompted to insert a USB drive of at least 32GB which I duly did but the "next" button stayed greyed out. After checking my USB drive I can see that there is actually only 28.8Gb available. Just to be sure I formatted it again and it stayed at 28.8GB. I checked a few other USB sticks I had lying around and they all seem to have capacity less than advertised (16GB is actually 14.7 etc).
I may have missed something else but the (real) capacity of 28.8GB seems to be what is stopping me from proceeding. I am sure that the good people of Microsoft know about USB drive capacities. Did they really mean us to get 64GB USB sticks to create recovery drives?
It appears that the issue you're encountering is a common one related to the way storage devices are marketed versus how operating systems calculate storage space.
Manufacturers often advertise storage capacity based on the assumption that 1GB equals 1 billion bytes. However, operating systems like Windows calculate 1GB as 1,073,741,824 bytes (1024^3 bytes), resulting in a lower displayed capacity.
For creating a Windows 11 recovery drive, a USB drive with a minimum capacity of 32GB is required. If your 32GB USB drive is showing only 28.8GB of available space, it may not be recognized by the recovery tool.
Here are some suggestions:
2. Use Disk Management or DiskPart: These built-in Windows tools can help delete all partitions on the USB drive and create a new single partition that utilizes the full capacity.
If your device encounters severe issues, such as an inability to access the operating system, you can utilize a recovery drive to access the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). It assists in the restoration of Windows or the execution of system restore points. To use a recovery drive, you must first prepare an empty USB flash drive (with a minimum of 16GB of space) to create a Windows recovery drive. As Windows undergoes periodic updates to enhance security and device performance, it is recommended to periodically create a new recovery drive.
Note: When restoring the device via a recovery drive, the original disk partition data on the system drive may be deleted. (If your device supports MyASUS in WinRE or ASUS Recovery, functionalities built into the disk partitions on the system drive will be removed.) If you wish to preserve these functionalities, you can restore the device through a system image, thereby backing up the data in the disk partitions. Learn more about How to create and use Windows System Image to restore your device.
If you experience the device cannot boot, you can use the recovery drive to enter Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), and then restore from a system restore point or reinstall Windows via the recovery drive.
I recently purchased a new notebook (HP 15-da0012dx). It came installed with an OEM copy of Windows 10 Home 64-bit. If I reformat or replace my SSD, I'd like to reinstall Windows with the vendor pre-installed drivers and software--in other words, perform a factory restore. Can a recovery drive (Control Panel > Recovery > Create a recovery drive) created with the "Back up system files to the recovery drive" option selected perform a factory restore on my SSD if later formatted (original paritions, including the Primary and any hidden recovery/OEM partitions, deleted)? On a new, replacement SSD? Is such a recovery drive system specific; that is, could it reinstall Windows 10 on systems other than my notebook?
On models with limited SSD storage space I believe HP already has eliminated a Recovery partition. You can order Recovery Media from your Support page if desired. Last item in the list of sftware and drivers:
I don't really understand the entire concept of replacing Recovery Media with the MS Recovery drive so I can't explain it very well but I have been told HP is transitioning to that on all/most models. The USB Recovery Drive should have all of the files without needing to download anything. HP has worked with MS on the new method so we can only hope they have it all worked out with making the USB Recovery Drive. MS also wants all software/drivers available through the MS Store eventually. I can see problems with that if internet is not working. If/when I get a laptop with no Recovery Media option I will probably copy C:\SwSetup folder to an external location just to be sure I can get online. It has all of the driver/software installers- unless that gets removed also.
I glanced at the creation and recovery process. I noticed that a user is restricted to making one set of recovery media. Is this true, and would you happen to know how it is enforced? Can the recovery media be used more than once (ad infinitum)?
After reading a bit more thoroughly, I tried clicking on "HP Recovery Manager > Create recovery media." I found that it opens the same dialogue box as "Control Panel > Recovery > Create a recovery drive"--that is, it does not open an HP Recovery Manager window as in the linked documentation. Perhaps it is related to the link in the note near the top of the documentation:
I had been told that HP would be ending the Recovery Media Creation but was under the assumption it would not be until end of year or early next year. You may not have the recovery partition which holds the files for creating Media or doing a System Recovery.
That is interesting. I also noticed that I might be missing the recovery partition. Let me first say that my notebook is quite new and that I have not made any changes to the hardware or partition scheme. My notebook has 1 drive (a 128 GB/119.2 GiB SSD) with the following partitions:
A bit earlier, I successfully used "Reset this PC" (Settings > Update & Security > Recovery). It seemed to perform a factory restore (reinstalled OS and pre-installed drivers and software). Of course, I want to guarantee I can do this if I ever reformat or replace my SSD.
I guessed that the data used for "Reset this PC" might be on "Windows RE tools" (i.e. the recovery partition), but it seems too small at only 980 MB. However, I do have the following system folders, which appear related to recovery drives (external link: -upgrade/111700-recovery-usb-drive-vs-windows-10-bootable-usb....
@CherylG Thank you very much for your last post. Before I ask about it, I'd like to say that I created a USB recovery drive via Microsoft Windows 10 (Control Panel > Recovery > Create a recovery drive) with the "Back up system files to the recovery drive" option selected and successfully restored my computer from it (boot from USB recovery drive > US (Choose your keyboard layout) > Troubleshoot > Recover from a drive > Just remove my files > Recover). From a cursory observation, the result is identical to my out-of-the-box state and the results of earlier "Reset this PC" operations (Settings > Update & Security > Recovery). The only differences found were the naming of one of my SSD's partitions (from "Windows RE tools" to "WINRE") and that my Windows updates/build carried over (IIRC, the updates carried over with "Reset this PC"). I note that I successfully did this restoration twice: first with my out-of-the-box partitions still on my SSD and then after deleting all partitions on my SSD using Windows 10 installation media created with Microsoft's Media Creation Tool.
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