How to Use a Windows Recovery Drive

If your PC just won’t start up properly, then you’ll need to use a USB recovery drive.

Using the recovery drive, you can then access the Windows system image backup that you created using Backup & Restore.

Table Of Contents
  1. Boot From the Recovery Drive
  2. Summary

Boot From the Recovery Drive

Turn off your computer and then plug in both the USB recovery drive and the USB hard drive that contains your Windows system image.

Turn on your PC and then boot from the recovery drive.

The computer will take a little more time to get started than is usual because the files are now being loaded from a USB stick rather than a hard drive.

But eventually you’ll see the select your keyboard layout screen.

Click the appropriate layout for your PC.

UK layout selected.
Click the appropriate keyboard layout for your computer.

Booting from a USB Drive

To boot from a USB drive, you need to interrupt the normal boot sequence.

You can do that by continually tapping a key on your keyboard immediately after pressing the power button.

Which key you need to tap varies between manufacturers. But the Esc, F8, F11 and F12 keys are probably the most commonly used.

Choose an Option

On the Choose An Option screen, click Troubleshoot.

Troubleshoot is selected.
Click on Troubleshoot.

Advanced Options

The Advanced options screen will appear. Here you have several options that could help you to repair your computer.

In order to restore the computer from a Windows system image backup, click the System Image Recovery button.

System image recovery is selected
Choose System Image Recovery.

Select the operating system that you’re using on your PC.

Typically this will be either Windows 10 or Windows 11.

Windows 11 is selected.
Select your computer operating system.

Select the Backup Image

Windows will scan your backup drive for system images. By default it’ll automatically select the latest one. Click the Next button to proceed.

For the Additional Restore options, just leave the defaults selected. Click the Next button.

Backup image is selected and Next button is indicated.
Click the Next button.
Defaults selected.
Leave everything at the defaults, click Next.

Next you’ll see a confirmation screen. Click the Finish button.

Then you’ll see warning popup notifying you that all data on the system added since the backup was created will be lost. Click the Yes button to start the restoration.

Finish button marked.
Click the Finish button.
Yes button is indicated.
Note the warning, this is your last chance to change your mind. Click Yes to continue.

Summary

When you need to restore your computer from a Windows system image backup, you can usually start the recovery from within Windows itself. How To Restore A PC From A Windows System Image.

But sometimes you’ll find that you can’t even get into Windows. It simply won’t start up or it’ll crash or freeze before you can do anything.

That’s where the recovery drive comes into it’s own. Booting from a recovery drive gives you a stable platform from which you can initiate the recovery process.

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Device Encryption is silently being enabled on all Windows 10 and Windows 11 Home editions that meet the hardware requirements and you’re signed in with a Microsoft account.

Device Encryption on Windows Home editions

It’s very important that you check whether or not device encryption is enabled on your computer and if it is, then you MUST either disable it or find your recovery key. I’ll show you how to do both.

Device Encryption

You can find this and other related step by step guides in – At Home Computer Security Guides

At Home Computer Step By Step Guides

At home computer website logo. Easy to follow tutorials for users of Windows 10 and Windows 11 computers.

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