Windows Recovery "Drive" Question

Me | 6/26/2023 | Paul R.

[Paul R.]

As a separate question arising from my last "article" / question, I am about to make a recovery drive for a refurbished Dell desktop machine I purchased recently. (Dell Precision Tower 3420 - a fairly impressive little machine considering I got it in great condition for under $80 including shipping.)

When I read about recovery drives, often it is stated they can be used to restore the machine to its "factory" state, software-wise, should one run into a software problem, corrupted drive, etc., not otherwise resolvable. But... This machine likely originally had WIN 7 Pro on it and then was upgraded to Win 10 Pro, which is what runs it now.* I under no circumstance would want to go back to "7" on this machine. Much less then see if it's even possible to "re-upgrade" to "10", once recovered.

So... What gives? If I make a recovery drive NOW, will it recover the machine to Win 10 Pro if need be?

Have any FReepers gone through this?

Thanks!

[norwaypinesavage]

You’re doing exactly what I do. For various reasons I keep over a dozen PCs running all the time. I buy used Dells, often with legal Office software on them. They have all upgraded to Win10, none to 11. Dell is great because they have all the drivers for each machine SN available online and will upgrade them mostly as needed. They do everything I need to do and were very inexpensive.

Don’t listen to the elitist geeks telling you to spend $2 grand on something that will all kinds of things you don’t need to do.

[FlatulusMaximus]

You should definitely have a recovery disk or drive, as well as regular, full image backups to be safe. Your question re: what version of 10 you’d end up with is a good one. I’m not sure. My experience is limited to a planned change from a 640 GB HDD to a 1 TB drive. I had 10 Home on the 640, and that’s what I ended up with on the 1 TB. I would think, if you’re creating the recovery tool with 10 Pro that’s what you’d get. I wouldn’t worry too much if you have a valid license for 10 Pro.

I recommend Macrium’s Reflect backup software, rather than any Microsoft product. It’s very robust and reliable, you can actually get support, and it will do either image or file/folder backups.

I went the refurbished Dell route recently, and have been very happy with it and 10 Pro. It’s borderline upgradeable, I’m told, with some “work arounds.” I’m in no hurry for 11, and am exploring Linux Mint on an older Toshiba laptop. So far I’m liking it a lot. I may jump the Windows ship entirely.

[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.

[Paul R.]

Thanks, but, the question wasn’t what version of win 10 I’d end up with, it was whether using the Recovery Drive would revert the OS back to Win 7. Most documentation (certainly Dell’s, for their Recovery Tool) indicates that’s what would happen.

[Paul R.]

Well, I don't have quite a dozen PC's used regularly, but I'm getting closer than is good for my sanity! ;-) But, yeah, agreed. And with refurbs from good sellers you usually get nice clean machines that one doesn't spend inordinate time on to degunk 'em of bloatware (although stripping off some of the Microsoft un-necessaries usually still takes a while. The laptop I ended up spending under $200 for including a NVME SSD for it (new boot drive, existing SATA SSD --> a data drive) and doubling the RAM to 16 GB, gives me virtually (pun not intended!) instantaneous responses to any request I make of it, even when I have quite a few windows open. Backlit keyboard, actually half-decent sound -- Good enough for me...

[Paul R.]

Ok, the “System Repair Disk” is not the same thing as the Recovery Drive”, or, is it?

[Tell It Right]

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

Almost, but not quite. You'll almost certainly need to download the drivers for the Dell machine. Bonus points if you do it while it's running and it's easier to know the model #'s and such of the components (though sometimes just the service tag # of the PC is enough to find the drivers for the devices that came in it). So all in all, make an Emergency Boot Disc (thumb drive), and a Recovery Drive, and download the device drivers and store them all somewhere.

Bonus points if you make a new Recovery Drive periodically (i.e. every 6 months, or at least before and after adding new software or new major OS updates). That way, if you do have to use a Recovery Drive you don't have to go all the way back to your starting point and update from there.

[Paul R.]

It sounds like you bought a machine with a less than 8th gen processor. Which is what this Dell Precision 3420 Tower (Mini-Tower / Desktop) is. It has “only” a 6th gen I-7 processor — still no slouch.

The refurb laptop* I bought for myself recently is an 8th gen I-7 and has 16 GB of RAM to work with: For me, it is plenty fast.

*That machine makes me think back to the Toshiba laptop with Vista on it that I bought NEW. Ugh! What a turd that (Vista, mostly) was. I still have it and the thing still boots up — but I might lose another relative or two while it does so. I keep thinking I should try some version of Linux on it, but never can find the time...

[Paul R.]

Whups, now we are back at the beginning:

Bonus points if you make a new Recovery Drive periodically (i.e. every 6 months, or at least before and after adding new software or new major OS updates). That way, if you do have to use a Recovery Drive you don't have to go all the way back to your starting point and update from there.

Ok, that seems to mean that if I made a Recovery Drive yesterday on a machine that is running fine, is, say, 4 years old, and has had an OS upgrade (or even had a big Service Pack) installed maybe a year back, if I need to use the (latest) Recovery Drive today, the machine does not recover back to "factory" settings, it recovers back to yesterday, correct?

[Paul R.]

Clarification of last post:

if I mess it up this evening and need to use the (latest) Recovery Drive now, the machine does not recover back to “factory” settings, it recovers back to yesterday, correct?

[Billthedrill]

No, but it can take you to the same place. The key is (1) booting the machine, (2) getting to the backup/restore app, and (3) running the restore. The “System Repair Disk” automates that a little better (IMHO, others might disagree) but they get you to the same place. Once you’ve done this you’ll get it.

[Paul R.]

Ok, noted. I’ve never actually had to do a System Repair or Recovery*, so that’s why I’m such a goobie newbie at this...

*It seems that when my machines die, they REALLY die. (Black-screen, won’t even boot from other media.)

Thanks!

[Paul R.]

Oh, Lord, why do I ever express such thoughts?

I went to fire the machine back up and it gave me a MBR 1 error. All cables checked ok. Mind you, I’d not yet had a chance to create the recovery drive or do any other work on the machine.

WTH?

Then it occurred to me the machine might have been trying to do a Windows update and having the new drive in there might be messing up a restart during the update. So, I pulled out the M.2 drive (still sitting there only as “E:) and sure enough, on the next try to restart / reboot, the thing gives me a message it is updating / don’t turn off / etc. The update proceeds and the machine boots up normally.

WHEW!

So, now I’m creating the recovery disk on a USB Flash Drive...

[Tell It Right]

You are correct. Recovering from the latest Recovery Drive restores Windows to what it was when that recovery drive was made, not all the way back to factory settings.

[Paul R.]

In Win 10 Pro, I’m not seeing a command to “Create a System Image”. Instead, there is a command to Create a Recovery Drive.” After one creates a Recovery Drive (I just did it) there is no option to “Create a System Repair Disk”. Looking at the files on the Recovery Drive, it appears the boot file is on the Recovery Drive in a folder named EFI, containing, among other things (many things): the file “boot64.efi”.

Also on the Recovery Drive (which takes quite a while to create) there are 3 BIG files: Reconstruct.WMI, Reconstruct.WMI2, and Reconstruct.WMI3. Those evidently contain the new image. It makes a lot of sense to combine the system image and Repair Disk (boot capability) onto a single drive, but the question remains, under Win 10: “image of what?”, or, should I say “when?”, as some sources still say under WIN 10, going in and recovering reverts the machine back to its FACTORY condition.*

Unless, of course, the C: drive has been wiped and a truly “fresh” OS installation made, which is what many sellers of Refurbs say they do.

Note:

On the same Win 10 Recovery console there is a “Reset” option whioh looks more like it uses some sort of recent restore point, as among other things the User is presented with NOT being able to go back to a previous version of Win 10 (such as prior to a Win 10 update) that is more than 10 days old. But, that “reset” also doesn’t seem to involve user creation of a conventional “Restore Point” at all.

Also on the same Win 10 Recovery console there is under “Advanced Startup” an option which appears to depend on a conventional System Image and firing up from a USB drive or DVD, but that option presents initially only the command “Restart Now”. Well, pardon my extreme French, WTF, I don’t want to “Restart Now”. Does clicking that button actually initiate a form of specialized recovery restart, or does it not actually do an immediate restart, but instead take one to options to follow a path such as you described to create a conventional System Image and a Repair Disk (or maybe create what seems to be that “combination” Recovery Disk?) I’m sure Microsoft documents this explicitly SOMEWHERE, but finding precise info. isn’t so easy...

Microsoft software from its beginning remains frustrating to the mid-level user. (Lord, I recall the first time I ran into “Word” and tried to decipher how to use it effectively — Universities had entire semester courses on how to puzzle it out.) And MS’s proclivity to rename stuff without full explanations of whether it’s really just the old (previous OS) way of doing things or has new twists one must carefully research (to KISS?)... is simply maddening.

[Paul R.]

Perhaps some really good / complete / instructive You Tube vids that go through all this would be helpful...

[Paul R.]

Ok, that applies to "Recovering from the latest Recovery Drive" through Windows 10 Pro, but maybe not if one uses the Dell Recovery software?

Part of what has thrown me is how different the Win 10 Pro Recovery Console looks like vs. earlier OS's like Win 7 (see post immediately above).

The sheer time it took (several hours with no other apps running) to create the Recovery Drive on what is a reasonably quick machine makes me think the Recovery Drive image files are in fact of CURRENT info. being imaged during creation of the Recovery Drive, not extraction of saved data. But, I've been zapped by such assumptions in the past...

Anyway, I'll go with "Recovering from the latest WINDOWS created Recovery Drive restores Windows to what it was when that recovery drive was made, not all the way back to factory settings." and I should be ready to rumble.* :-)

*Ie., from my previous thread, convert the C: drive from MBR to GPT (but with recovery possible if I or "something" screws up), so I can then clone the OS to the GPT based MVME M.2 drive I purchased for the machine.

Sweet Jesus, no wonder I can't always remember birthdays and phone numbers any more. My brain is past its slowly declining capacity with THIS stuff! :-(

Thanks!

[Paul R.]

Make that "2 posts above". (Eye roll!)

[Tell It Right]

Simply put, the Dell Recovery Software may or may not be needed after a recovery with a Windows Recovery Drive. It will definitely be needed if the Dell software includes, say, a full printing suite of apps for a Dell printer (that suite of apps won’t be in the Windows Recovery). But the Dell software may not be needed if you have no Dell peripherals and, instead, the only Dell software you need is for the internal Dell hardware (i.e. video driver, CD driver, etc.).