If there is a severe issue happened in your Windows 11 computer such as hardware failure or boot problems, you can use the recovery drive to restore your Windows. This post offers you two ways on how to create a Windows 11 recovery USB and how to use it.
Just as its name implies, a recovery drive makes a copy of your Windows 11 environment on an external hard drive including a USB drive, CD, and DVD. Due to the portability and affordable price, a Windows 11 recovery USB is preferred by users.
If you run into some tricky issues on your Windows 11 computer, you can use the recovery drive to enter Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) which can help you troubleshoot them, even if your PC cannot boot. For example, it brings many advanced recovery options, such as Startup Repair, System Restore, and Safe Mode, with which you can execute different tasks to solve different problems accordingly.
If you want to know how to create a Windows 11 recovery USB, you need to prepare an empty USB flash drive with at least 16GB capacity first. It's also recommended to recreate the recovery USB annually because Windows will periodically update to improve the PC's security and performance.
Note: A Windows 11/10 recovery USB does not include your personal files or built-in applications. Here you can learn how to back up them via disk cloning.
You are able to create a Windows 11 recovery USB in two practical ways, including using the built-in program and a third-party bootable USB creation tool. Scroll down to see how to create a USB recovery drive for Windows 11, which is also applied to older versions of the operating system, such as Windows 10.
Recovery Drive Creator, the built-in Windows utility, is used to create recovery drive Windows 11. The below content will walk you through every step of the creation process.
Step 1. Connect a USB drive to your PC. In the search box on the taskbar, search for "recovery drive" and then select "Create a recovery drive".
Step 2. When the tool opens, make sure the "Back up system files to the recovery drive" option is ticked, and then select "Next".
Step 3. Select the prepared USB, and then select "Next". Click "Create" to begin the creation of a recovery drive for Windows 11. This process might take a while.
After knowing how to create a Windows 11 recovery USB, you may want to know how to use it. Here comes the details:
Step 1. Insert your recovery drive, enter into the BIOS setup, and boot from this recovery USB.
Step 2. Then, you will be taken to the Windows Recovery Environment. In the Troubleshoot window, you will see "Reset this PC", "Recovery from a drive" and "Advanced options".
Note: Both of the former two options are used to reinstall Windows, and the third option offers many tools to repair your computer such as startup repair, system restore, uninstall updates, etc.
Step 3. Take "Recover from a drive" as an example. After clicking it, you can select "Just remove my files" to delete only files on your computer or choose "Fully clean the drive" to recycle the PC.
In addition to using Windows inbuilt tool to create Windows 11 recovery USB, switching to a third-party tool is a convenient alternative way to help you create a bootable repair disk for Windows 11. AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is such a utility that meets your need. It's not only designed for Win11 but also for Windows 10/8/8.1/7/XP/Vista systems.
Through the "Make Bootable Media" feature in this software, you can make a repaired USB by preinstalling AOMEI Partition Assistant on the USB flash drive. When you boot from this drive, you can use all the functions to fix your computer problems.
Now, we'll show you the details on how to create a Windows 11 recovery USB via AOMEI Partition Assistant.
Step 1. Prepare a USB flash drive and insert it into a running computer. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Click "Tools"> "Make Bootable Media" in the top panel and click "Next".
Step 2. Choose your prepared USB in the "USB Boot Device" section and click "Proceed".
Step 3. Wait for the operation process patiently, click "Finish", and then, you will get a bootable USB with AOMEI software pre-installed on it.
How to use:
Connect this repair device to your computer that has a boot problem, set it as the boot drive in the BIOS setup, and boot from it. Then, AOMEI Partition Assistant will be launched automatically. You can choose the features to fix your problems based on your needs, such as:
1. Rebuild MBR
A corrupted or damaged MBR is a common reason why you cannot boot up your computer. Via this bootable repair USB, you can use AOMEI product to rebuild MBR without destroying any data.
2. Wipe partition
This feature is suitable for those who want to wipe partition and erase data completely before selling the PC but fail to boot into it. An emergency disk can help you access your partition and wipe all data from it permanently.
That's all about how to create a Windows 11 recovery USB and how to use it. You can follow the steps to restore your system. In addition, a bootable repair disk created by AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is also an ideal choice to fix computer problems quickly and manage disks and partitions better.
Apart from the features we displayed above, there are many other functions you might use to respond to your issues like deleting system partition, checking disk errors, testing hard drive speed, formatting SSD with OS on it, etc.