What can you do when you can’t create the recovery drive?

The Windows system allows users to use a USB device or CD-ROM drive to create a recovery drive. The recovery drive can help users reset the computer or perform troubleshooting. When the Windows system cannot be started, it can also be used to reinstall Windows through the recovery drive.

However, when some situations occur, the creation process will fail, and an error message “Unable to create recovery drive” will appear at the same time. For example: the storage capacity of the USB drive you are using is less than 16GB; the recovery drive device has been attacked by a virus or malware; the USB drive is damaged or Windows system files are damaged; antivirus software prevents the recovery drive from being created; Windows cannot format everything on the drive to create a recovery drive, etc.

After knowing what factors can cause the problem of “unable to create a recovery drive”, let’s learn several common methods to solve this problem.

1. Turn off the antivirus software

While antivirus software can effectively protect your computer’s security, third-party antivirus software may occasionally prevent the creation of a recovery drive due to potentially dangerous factors. The solution is to turn off the third-party antivirus software. The specific operation steps are as follows:

Step 1: Run the computer, click the (Start) button in the lower left corner, and find (Settings) (the small gear icon).

Step 2: Next, in the settings interface, select the (Update and Security) option and enter. After that, switch the function bar to (Windows Security Center), and click the (Open Windows Security Center) button on the right.

Then enter the (Virus and threat protection) interface.

Step 3: If you have not installed a third-party antivirus program, you can turn off/disable Windows Defender; if you have installed a third-party antivirus program, find the (Open Application) option, and then disable the security protection function of the third-party antivirus software or is to close the software. If your third-party antivirus software is a self-starting program, you can disable it in the (Startup) tab of the task manager, then restart the computer, re-create the recovery drive, and check whether the problem is resolved.

2. Format the USB drive

The operation of formatting the faulty disk can repair various faults of the device and make it work normally again. The detailed operation steps of formatting the disk are as follows:

Step 1: Connect the USB disk to the computer, then press the (Windows+X) keys on the keyboard at the same time. Then in the pop-up list, select the (Disk Management) option.

Step 2: Next, find the USB disk that needs to be formatted, right-click on it and select the (Format) option.

Step 3: Select the file system FAT32 or NTFS, check (Perform quick format), click (OK), and follow the instructions to complete the formatting process. After the formatting operation is complete, safely unplug and reconnect the device before creating a recovery drive to see if the problem is resolved.

3. Run the SFC /scannow command

The SFC (System File Checker) tool is a Windows built-in utility, and the SFC command scans all protected system files and fixes detected issues. The specific operation steps are as follows:

Step 1: Run the computer, search (cmd) in the search box in the lower left corner, right-click and select (run as administrator) to open the command prompt tool.

Step 2: In the opened command prompt window, enter the command (SFC /scannow) and press the (Enter) key. Next, System File Checker will perform a system scan and fix problematic system files. If it prompts that SFC cannot repair the damaged file, please continue to the next step.

Step 3: Type (Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth) in the opened Command Prompt window and press the (Enter) key to execute the repair command. After the command is executed, restart the computer and check whether the current problem is resolved.

The above are several ways to solve Windows 10 “unable to create a recovery drive”. If the above methods cannot solve the current problem, then when the system cannot be accessed without a recovery drive, you can use Renee PassNow backup or transfer data.

When the Windows system fails and cannot be accessed, Renee PassNow can be used to back up or transfer important data in the system. As a professional system rescue software, it can not only help Windows users clear Windows account passwords, create new administrator accounts; restore disk/memory card data, recover data after hard disk formatting; transfer disk files; erase or scan Disk files and other requirements. In addition, it also supports repairing various Windows system problems, such as: repairing MBR boot record, DBR error parameters, 0xc00000e, Windows system startup failure, and some problems that cause black screen or blue screen, etc.

Use Renee PassNow to create a recovery drive, the specific steps are as follows:

Step 1: Download and install Renee PassNow on other computers that can log in and run normally, then connect the U disk to the PC, run Renee PassNow, and then check in “Step 1: Choose the creation method” (Create a rescue USB disk) option. (Note: Before performing this operation, please make sure that the important files in the U disk have been saved in other locations, because the operation process will delete all the data in the U disk.)

Step 2: Next, select (x64) or (x86) according to the system type, click the (Download Now) button to download the ISO file, click the (Create Rescue USB) button after the file is downloaded, and click the (Eject USB) button.

Step 3: Connect the created boot device to the computer that needs to transfer data, turn on the computer, and then the shortcut key to enter the BIOS will be displayed on the computer screen (the display time of this interface is very short, maybe only one or two seconds), click continuously BIOS shortcut key to enter the BIOS setting interface, and then set the boot U disk as the first in the boot sequence in Boot Priority, then save the settings and restart the computer.

Step 4: After starting the computer from the startup U disk and entering the Renee PassNow program, select the (data backup) option. This option is equivalent to completely cloning the hard disk to other hard disks, so the hard disk capacity for saving backup files needs to be larger.

Step 5: Select the hard disk to be backed up in the (source) list, select the hard disk to save the backup in the (destination) list, and finally click (clone) and wait for the cloning to complete to successfully back up the computer hard disk files.

Step 6: If you only need to transfer some important data in the hard disk, you can choose (Data Transfer).

Step 7: You can click on each disk drive letter (C/D/E/F, etc.) to find the files to be transferred. It is recommended that you transfer them to an external disk. The operation of transferring data is very simple. For example, if you want to transfer the data in the C drive to the G drive, you can first select the C drive on the upper left, select the G drive on the upper right, and then select the files in the C drive, and click the Copy function button in the middle. Disk data can be easily transferred. If there is a file you want to delete, you can also click the (Delete) button in the middle after selecting the file, but the deletion operation cannot be undone, please operate with caution.

Tips: If you find any files lost during the process of backing up or transferring data, please select the (Undeleter) option on the main function interface to perform data recovery operations.