Sometimes Windows fails to boot properly and thats when we clench our fists thinking that we should have created a recovery drive earlier. When you install Windows 8 or buy a new Windows 8 PC, you should create a recovery drive for such emergency situations so that you can boot through the recovery drive and fix the boot problems. Windows 8 comes with a recovery drive creation utility using which you can create a recovery drive on a USB disk. Here is how:
- Switch to the Windows Settings Search using the hotkey Windows key + W.
- In the search box, type recovery and then click/tap on Create a recovery drive as shown.
- This would start a Recovery Drive creation wizard. On the starting screen of this wizard is an option to copy the contents of a recovery partition if your computer came with one. This option should be selected if available. Plug in a USB disk and click Next to continue.
- Now you are shown a list of available disks that can be used for creating the Recovery Drive. The disk must have atleast 256 MB available space on it. The target disk would be formatted and all the data on it would be erased, so make sure you check and backup the important files on the USB disk. Click Next and then Create to start the creation of the Recovery Drive.
- The wizard would format and copy the utilities on the target disk. After a few seconds, your Recovery Drive would be ready. You can click on the Finish button to close the wizard.
The Recovery Drive can be used to boot into your PC and troubleshoot the problems. This Recovery Drive has tools to refresh your PC, reset your PC, run system restore, fix startup problems and more. The Refresh Your PC option lets you refresh your PC without losing any of your personal files. The Reset Your PC option lets you reset your PC and make it as if you have freshly installed Windows 8. There are many other options for fixing and troubleshooting Windows 8.