You No Longer Can Reinstall Windows 10 From Recovery Drive

UPDATE: You no longer can reinstall Windows 10 from a recovery drive. In recent versions of Windows 10 or if you prepared the recovery drive on a recent version of Windows 10, when you boot from the recovery drive and navigate to Troubleshoot section, the option “Recover from a drive” is not present. So, in short, you cannot use the recovery drive to reinstall Windows 10 now.

Do you need to perform a reinstall of Windows 10? Would you like to reinstall Windows 10 using the recovery drive that you previously created? In this guide, we will see how to reinstall Windows 10 from a recovery drive.

You are aware that Windows 10 allows you to create a USB recovery drive. The recovery drive can be used to troubleshoot Windows 10 startup and other issues, restore Windows 10 to an earlier date, restore Windows 10 using an image, reset and reinstall Windows 10.

NOTE 1: If your Windows 10 install was activated before the reinstall, your copy of Windows 10 will be automatically activated after the reinstall as soon as your PC is connected to the internet. You can refer to our reinstall Windows 10 without losing activation article for more details. That said, we advise you to link Windows 10 license to your Microsoft account for piece of mind.

NOTE 2: If your PC came preinstalled with Windows 8/8.1 and a dedicated recovery partition, reinstalling from the recovery drive will restore the Windows version that came preinstalled (Windows 8/8.1 in this case). If there is no dedicated recovery partition (even though your PC came preinstalled with Windows 8/8.1 and you upgraded to Windows 10), Windows 10 will be reinstalled.

NOTE 3: You cannot reinstall Windows 10 from recovery drive if you have not selected “Back up system files to the recovery drive” option while preparing your Windows 10 recovery drive.

IMPORTANT: Reinstalling Windows 10 in this way will remove all data from your system drive, including your personal files, apps installed from Store, desktop programs, device drivers, and system settings.

Reinstall Windows 10 from recovery drive

Step 1: Connect your previously prepared Windows 10 recovery drive to your PC and make necessary changes to the BIOS to boot from the USB drive.

Step 2: Restart your PC. In a few moments, you will see the Choose your keyboard layout screen. If you cannot see your keyboard layout in the list, click See more keyboard layouts option.

NOTE: If you are not getting the Choose your keyboard layout screen, it’s likely because your PC is not booting from the connected USB recovery drive. Check BIOS settings again to make sure that it’s configured to boot from USB. If BIOS settings are looking good, your USB recovery drive is likely corrupted or not working properly.

Step 3: On the Choose an option screen, click Troubleshoot.

Step 4: Finally, click Recover from a drive and then click Recover button to begin reinstalling Windows 10 by removing your personal files and apps.

From here on, you can follow the standard Windows 10 installation procedure to reinstall Windows 10. After the reinstallation, you can check for updates, install device drivers (Windows 10 will automatically download almost all drives), and install your favorite programs again.