2 Free Ways to Copy Recovery Partition to USB Windows 10, 8, 7

Scenario: “I just bought a new computer and I found there is a 450mb big recovery partition. I wanna copy this recovery partition to my USB so that I can make use of it whenever necessary. What should I do?”

What Is Recovery Partition and What Does It Do?

A recovery partition is a partition in your hard drive with no drive letter. It has very important data for system recovery. For example, when your computer is down, you may need this partition to resume factory setting. It usually comes with a brand-new computer or laptop or when you first install Windows operating system, this partition is created.

Moreover, there are 2 kinds of recovery partition. One of them is Windows recovery partition and the other is computer suppliers’ recovery partition. They have different sizes but share similar function.

Why Should We Save Recovery Partition to USB Drive?

Users often copy recovery partition to USB mainly for 2 purposes.

1. Save Storage Space

The computer suppliers’ recovery partition sometimes can be as large as 20GB compared with 450 MB of Windows recovery partition. So, to clone recovery partition to USB or another hard drive and delete the original files on the hard disk can help you free up a lot of disk space.

2. Back up Recovery Partition Data

The other reason why people clone recovery partition to USB Windows 10, 8, or 7 is that they hope to back up recovery partition files.

Sometimes, it may occur that your system can’t boot or your disk encounter physical damage that it can no longer be used. In such a case, if you’ve copied the recovery partition to other external hard drives, you can insert the drive into your computer and set your system back to the factory mode.

3. Create a bootable USB

You can perform system restore when the OS crashes by creating a bootable USB from recovery partition beforehand. The bootable USB also helps when you want to replace the hard disk.

2 Ways to Free Clone Recovery Partition to USB

There are 2 methods to help copy recovery partition to Windows 7, 8, 10. They're both free and easy-to-use. Follow the instruction below to see how they work.

1. Apply Windows' Native Tool

Since Windows has its own inbuilt tool to copy HP and Dell recovery partitions to USB, why not try it first for free.

1. Tap on the Windows key on your keyboard.

2. In the search box, input recovery drive, and then, select “Create a recovery drive”.

3. After opened, select “Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive” and click on “Next”.

4. Insert your USB drive or any other external devices, select it and choose “Next”

5. Choose “Create” and then, it will start the process to copy the recovery partition to the USB.

Note: If you want to delete the recovery partition to free up some space, proceed with the following steps or you may stop here.

6. When the process is completed, select “Delete the recovery partition” to remove the recovery partition from your PC.

7. Then, hit “Delete”. When done, click on “Finish”.

8. Remove the USB stick from the PC.

Refer to this page for detailed information about how to copy recovery partition to USB.

2. Try A Free Third-Party Tool

The USB stick is a reliable device to store the recovery partition by using the Windows built-in feature mentioned above. However, sometimes, you may run into the error “The drive is not a valid backup location”. The cause of it is that Windows doesn’t recognize the USB drive as a valid backup location since earlier they weren’t large enough to hold system images.

Luckily, although we could more or less encounter those mentioned issues, we still have a chance to clone recovery partition to USB with the most powerful disk management tool - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. With this software, you’re not only capable of copying hp recovery partition to USB, but also, you can do things like clone hard drive, clone OS to SSD/HDD, partition USB drive and so on.

Free download the most user-friendly program and learn how to copy HP recovery partition to USB on Windows 11, 10, 7, 8.

Before started, there should be part of unallocated space on your USB drive. If there isn’t, please create one by deleting or shrinking another partition. You’ll lose your data if you delete the partition and so, back it up first.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant,  right-click the partition you want to clone and select the "Clone Partition" tool to run partition clone. (You can also click the "Clone" main tab and select "Clone Partition".)

Step 2. In next window, select the destination partition or unallocated space to hold your source partition, and then click "Confirm".

Step 3. Then, you will enter the Confirm interface where you can check the source and destination clone location. After all is set, you can click the "Confirm" button to continue.

Notes:

• There is a "4k alignment" option. If you want to copy a partition onto a SSD (Solid State Drive), ticking this option will optimize the read and write speed on this partition. It can also extend the life of the SSD.
• If you select the "Sector-by-Sector Clone" mode, the unallocated space must be equal or larger than source partition. If you tick the option, it will be unable to resize the destination partition.

Step 4. In the next window, you can click the "Settings" button to adjust the target partition size. As you can see from the screenshot, you could adjust the size of source partition in order to fit the target partition as per your need, or directly skip the step and click "Save".

Step 5. You can preview the partition copy operating by viewing the "Pending Operations". To commit the "Pending Operations", please click "Apply" and "Proceed".

The cloning process will start and you can check the cloning process. Once the process is completed successfully, you will get a congratulation window. Finally, you can check the partition layout on the destination disk will be identical to the source partition.

Further reading: An alternative to the recovery partition – back up the OS

Sometimes, for different reasons, the recovery partition won’t work when you try to restore your PC to the previous healthy state. Luckily, you can upgrade to the Pro edition of AOMEI Partition Assistant to migrate OS to another hard drive for a system backup so that you can restore the system instead of launching an OS reinstallation when system errors appear.

Conclusion 

Now, you must have known how to copy the recovery partition to USB, quick and safe. This time, you’ve seen 2 methods above. Windows' inbuilt tool helps transfer recovery partitions to external devices by creating a recovery drive, but you can possibly run into an error “the drive is not a valid backup location” for system programs exist. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard can be used on Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 for recovery partition to USB transfer, and upgrading to the Professional Edition will more features to efficiently manage your computers.