We can't create a recovery drive when trying to create a NEW recovery drive.

Anonymous
2023-03-23T20:01:10+00:00

When I created my recovery drive the only drive available with the necessary space available was a removable hard drive. I ordered a new flash drive that was big enough and today I tried to create a new recovery drive.

App comes up no problem but after checking my system for available drives it returns the error
"We can't create the recovery drive" A problem occurred while creating the recovery drive.

I checked the forum for help and saw a reference to regagentc /info so I ran it and compared to the one posted mine actually had a drive listed. I disconnected the drive and restarted the system; but got the same error and information.

So basically, how can I create a new recovery drive? How would anyone create a new one if say their old one became unusable? There must be some information somewhere.

Thanks in advance,

Pamela

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Recovery and backup

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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Anonymous
2023-03-23T21:01:01+00:00

Hi, MissPam_Samm,

Sorry to hear you're experiencing this issue.

This error is usually related to the option "Back up system files to the recovery drive", sometimes creating the recovery drive with this option unchecked first and then recreating with this option checked may fix the problem.

1-Click on Start, search for the recovery drive, and click on that

2-In the Recovery Drive wizard uncheck the "Back up system files to the recovery drive" option

3-Click on Next

4-Select the USB drive that you intend to use as a recovery drive

5-Click Next to continue

6-Click the Create button to confirm the action. The utility will format the drive and copy the required files to the storage device

7-Regardless of whether you see an error or the process completes successfully, don’t click the Finish or Close button

8-Instead, click on the back button in the upper left corner

9-Now check the option "Back up system files to the recovery drive"

10-Then click on Next and follow the instructions to create the recovery drive

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-03-14T01:14:20+00:00

    I'm in the same boat. I just want to reset my old PC but it won't do it without a recovery disk and I can't create a recovery disk! RobinsonSilvestre's suggestion did not work - I got thru step 9 but it still failed on step 10. HELP!

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-01-16T04:51:11+00:00

    Thanks for the reply but I tried all that and it didn’t work. The “next” button was grayed out on the screen telling me to use at least a 32 GB flash drive. So can’t proceed.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-01-05T20:43:10+00:00

    Yep, same thing here. Did not work. I even followed another suggestion to do a full format of the USB drive instead of a quick format. That didn't help either.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-11T17:48:00+00:00

    I had the same issue on a HP Pavilion Windows 11 laptop.

    After spending most of the day recovering Windows 11 from an issue caused by failed Windows Updates I thought it prudent to create a recovery drive.

    Despite this being a very straight forward process, it doesn't work. Does anyone at Microsoft actually test this software? What is the point in displaying a totally useless message that gives NO indication of what might be causing the issue?

    I'm using a brand new 32GB Sandisk USB stick which I have formatted using the "slow" format method. I don't believe this is a USB capacity issue as SURELY the recovery software would check how much space was available/required PRIOR to performing the recovery and advise accordingly if the USB stick was not large enough. At least that's what I would expect from a well designed and developed utility!

    Tried the above solution to first perform the recovery without copying system files, which takes seconds to complete, then backing up and trying again with the copy system files checked. DID NOT WORK. After around 5 minutes in (barely 1/10th of the progress bar) it fails with the same USELESS error message.

    I give up!

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