Can't create recovery drive on this PC

Anonymous
2012-11-10T16:19:44+00:00

Hi guys,

Just tried to create a recovery USB drive. But I find that "We can't create a recovery drive on this PC. Some required files are missing. To troubleshoot problems when your PC can't start, use your Windows installation disc or media."

Uh?

Is a fresh Windows 8 x64 (RTM) installation. Only thing that I can think of is it has UEFI and Secure Boot enabled.

Ideas?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-11-09T21:26:11+00:00

    Not much help here with this problem which I am experiencing also. I do all the right things and get the "files missing" message but not a glimmer of a hint as to which files. Has anybody been able to create the recovery USB under windows 8.1 pro. I have a recovery usb drive I built under windows 8 pro but am not certain if it would help if windows 8.1 failed to boot or had other problems. If there was anyway to find out what files are missing it would go a long way to resolving this problem.

    Jim

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-04T03:02:59+00:00

    Hello-I had this problem with Win8 attempting to create a recovery drive on a flash drive. I had to create a recovery drive on a DVD. . However, Win 8.1 eliminated this problem with a flash drive and I am now able to do the same on a flash drive.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-04T00:46:22+00:00

    I had the same error message.  I found that I had deleted the recovery files in an overly aggressive C: drive cleanout. there should be a hidden folder on the C drive called 'recovery'. restoring this (from the recycle bin) fixed the issue for me, and allowed me to create the recovery media.

    Unfortunately I cannot at this point suggest any method for creating this folder from other sources, on my other PC's this folder is access denied, so a simple copy didn't work.

    I've not finished proving it at this point ( I need a spare drive to do a complete test restore to), but it appears that any 'recovery drive' created with windows 8 should allow you to boot any machine to a point you can access system images, so in the meantime, consider creating one from a friends PC, or other..

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-10-30T03:03:14+00:00

    Hello-I was having this problem with Win8. I have downloaded Win8.1 and I created a recovery drive on a32GB flash drive.

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-10-29T22:28:06+00:00

    I had this problem on my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro.  What I found was that I had disabled a startup item that caused me to get the same message as the OP and I could not check the copy recovery partition option either.  Here is what I did:

    Hold down Control, Alt and Delete at same time.

    Select Task Manager

    Select Startup Tab

    Select RTFTrack and click "Enable"

    Restart computer

    By doing just this one thing, I was able to create my recovery disk along with copying the recovery partition to a USB drive.  I hope this works for others!

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