How to Make Windows 11 Reboot into Recovery

Earlier I installed Windows 11 on a system that already had a SSD. I forgot to remove the old SSD and added the new SSD too. After installing the Windows 11 operating system on the new SSD, I was surprised that how it booted directly into the Windows desktop and did not show any setup screen. At first I called Microsoft and discussed the matter with their experts. They told me to boot into the Windows recovery mode and check the partitions. Through Windows Recovery I found out about the system already having a smaller M.2 SSD that can easily be missed.

When you have to fix a few things related to the operating system, hard disk drives, or startup related issues, you might have to boot into the recovery environment. It is a special Windows environment in which you can easily repair some problems related to the booting or booting from the proper disk.

Windows 11 Recovery Environment

Here is how we can make Windows 11 reboot into recovery mode:

  1. Press the Win+X hotkey and select Terminal (Admin) from the menu.Windows 11 Recovery Environment
  2. In the Terminal window, give the command reagentc /info to find out if your system has recovery enabled. If you see that Windows RE Status is Disabled then you won’t be able to boot into recovery. In that case, you can try giving the command reagentc /enable but it might not work if the recovery partition is missing.
  3. If the Windows RE status is “Enabled”, then you can give the following command to make Windows boot into the recovery mode at next start: reagent /boottore.Windows 11 Recovery Environment
  4. Save all the work in any open windows, close Terminal and then reboot your PC. When Windows restarts, it will first go into the recovery mode. Depending on the kind of the Windows RE, you will either see the stock recovery screen or a custom OEM recovery screen.