[Tell It Right]

To be specific, the Recovery Drive isn't a full disk image. It's a full restore of the OS (along with registry settings of various apps).

For example, if you like to do personal budgeting with MS Excel, the Recovery Drive will probably remember enough info about your MS Excel settings (perhaps even the license # to assist you in re-installing Excel). But it definitely won't be a backup copy of your budget spreadsheets.

[Paul R.]

Noted. Strictly speaking, this little Dell has almost nothing on it yet except for the OS. I did install IrfanView and Acronis, but otherwise there’s just the OS and all the usual stuff Microsoft throws in. So, that’s why I was thinking all I needed at present was to create a Recovery Drive, in case something blew up on me (or I blew it up!) while trying to get the NVME drive I added set up as the boot drive. (Long story, on that other thread I linked to.)

I can create a Recovery Drive out of Windows NOT using Dell’s software, correct? Any difference in results?

For the life of me I don’t quite understand why the Recovery Drive tool doesn’t give the option of creating a Recovery Drive for the machine as it left the factory, OR for “the machine as presently (assumed reasonably well) operating”, to accommodate, for example, an upgrade to the OS that was successful.