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I am confused by the different built-in recovery options available in windows 10. I have identified 8. Why are there so many options?

Are any of these options functionally identical to each other? Are any options considered obsolete or generally not used?

How are similar options different from each other (e.g. recovery drive vs repair disk)?

What are the pros/cons of relying on each option?

  1. Recovery/OEM partitions on hard drive
  2. Reset this PC
  3. Advanced start-up
  4. create a recovery drive
  5. create a system repair disk
  6. create a system image
  7. create a system restore point
  8. Windows installation media (Do any of the above options offer as clean an install as this?)
Not Dr Jeff
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    “Why does it say windows 7” - It’s a legacy tool. “There is the "reset this PC" option. What does this even do?” - It’s a built-in method to reinstall Windows 10. – Ramhound Aug 16 '22 at 11:40
  • Thanks for the quick reply, but I was looking for more details than this. It's obvious that it's a legacy tool, but why? Being a legacy tool suggests that using it is discouraged going forward, correct? What issues are there with it and what is the preferred alternative? "Reset this PC" reinstalls Windows 10? A completely clean install!? So how does that relate to recovery partitions and drives? Does it need a recovery partition to function? or does it use up extra storage in the C drive? If so, can I remove those files if I have another recovery method? – Not Dr Jeff Aug 16 '22 at 11:51
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    Why is it a legacy tool, because, Microsoft hasn’t replaced it. Reset can completely reinstall it, or reinstall it and keep your files, the feature is well documented by dozens of answers on this website. The recovery partition allows you to boot to WinRE, it can be used to Reset your PC, but the feature is built-into Windows. I have submitted many answers with regards to the ability to Reset Windows 10 – Ramhound Aug 16 '22 at 11:56
  • The Microsoft article I put in my answer reasonably explains this legacy feature. – John Aug 16 '22 at 12:16
  • Thanks both. I would argue that calling something "legacy" implies it has in fact been replaced, but is still needed for backwards compatibility. I'm understanding from this that the only reason it exists in windows 10 is to restore files from a windows 7 backup. So it is not recommended for backing up files going forward? I'm guessing "file history" was the intended replacement for this? – Not Dr Jeff Aug 16 '22 at 12:26
  • @Ramhound, sorry for the redundant question about "reset your PC", I added this on because it I was trying to understand how it differs form the other options. So it's just an alternative to WinRE, if you can still boot into windows. I didn't find a good answer on the forum to my question about recovery partitions vs recovery drives so the overall question is still valid I think. – Not Dr Jeff Aug 16 '22 at 12:30
  • No; it has nothing to do with WinRE directly. It’s only connection is that it’s a feature. Windows 10 doesn’t have a replacement backup tool, File History, isn’t a backup tool. Reset isn’t a backup tool. WinRE isn’t a backup tool, it’s a recovery environment, to run commands in order to get an unbootable Windows installation potential bootable. – Ramhound Aug 16 '22 at 12:35
  • This site focuses on good questions that can have specific answers. For this reason one of our rules is that each post must have a single question. While your questions are related, they are still different, because you have not asked about all of these functions, but you have asked specific questions about EACH of them. Please edit to a single question. – music2myear Aug 17 '22 at 01:04
  • @music2myear sorry, I should have posted a more focussed question. The main question is still about the differences, similarities and relationships between these tools. I could edit it to be about recovery tools only instead of recovery and backup tools, but I think that would remove context from the answer that has been given already. Should I change the question anyway? – Not Dr Jeff Aug 17 '22 at 13:27
  • If you don't, the question will be rightly closed for being too broad. We welcome multiple questions, but we ask that wash individual question IS only a single question. – music2myear Aug 18 '22 at 23:00

1 Answers1

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1. Leave the 3 partitions that Windows 10 and 11 create. You may want / need the recovery partition one day.

2. File History backs up files you designate. It is not a whole disk backup. I use Sync Back Pro for this as it is better in my circumstance.

3. Windows 7 Backup. See the article. This is for moving Windows 7 files to Windows 10.

You can use your PC's Backup and Restore feature to help you move all your favorite files off a Windows 7 PC and onto a Windows 10 PC. This option is best when you have an external storage device available. Here's how to move your files using Backup and Restore.

Windows 7 backup

4. Reset this PC. Uses the recovery partition to reinstall Windows either fully or Keep Data. I use the Media Creation Link for this purpose.

5. System Restore. This uses System Restore points. My luck is that the restore point I need is not there / was not created. I do not find this feature to be robustly useful. You can assign as much space as you want. I have other backups and do not use this.

Otherwise, to belt and suspender - I do not tamper with the 3 Windows partitions. Save space in Windows (large files) or get a bigger disk.

Note: I strongly suggest not moving or deleting Windows folders that you do not fully understand real well. Some USERS folders are not readily moved (whole folder).

Followup: You later noted your Recovery Partition was 24GB. Normal size for this is about 1GB. If you cannot tix, then properly reinstalling Windows is now a good idea.

John
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  • Thanks John. I recognise the need for recovery partitions, but why do they need to be kept on the same disk? Why can't I keep them on an external hard drive? And if I use the create recovery disk option, wouldn't this render the primary drive recovery partitions redundant? – Not Dr Jeff Aug 16 '22 at 11:57
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    One partition is UEFI - do not move this. One partition is Data (Windows) - keep that on Drive C and move only Documents to another drive. One partition is Recovery. Small - I keep it. For Windows - do not move or delete what you do not understand real well. – John Aug 16 '22 at 11:59
  • Yes, I'm aware of the UEFI partition. I have a laptop with a 256GB main drive. I am dual booting windows and Ubuntu, and I only keep system and program files on this drive. All my files are kept on secondary storage. But space is still at a premium! I don't really want to move program files to a secondary disk. Meanwhile my recovery partitions are occupying nearly 24GB that would give much appreciated breathing room. – Not Dr Jeff Aug 16 '22 at 12:07
  • You might wish to see why the recovery partition is 24GB. Mine is only 1 GB on all my machines. One machine has 2 recovery partitions (so 2 GB) because there is a Windows 11 insider partition and the original partition. But 24 GB - do check that. – John Aug 16 '22 at 12:10
  • My laptop was upgraded to windows 10 from win 8 (maybe 8.1). I have 4 recovery partitions. 1GB WINRE; 134MB "microsoft reserved"; 16GB Lenovo_recovery (another WINRE?); and 7.5GB "intel ffs reserved". I am thinking some of these are redundant now, but I'm not sure which ones. I wanted to check if creating a recovery drive would keep me fully covered if I were to get rid of (some or all) of them. Also wanted to make sure I had backed up appropriately, which took me down a rabbit hole that led to this question here. (Although I have still have more googling to do on what these partitions are.) – Not Dr Jeff Aug 16 '22 at 13:00
  • My own machines are Lenovo and have 1 GB recovery partitions. I am not sure why you have a 16 GB recovery partition. Something may have gone wrong in its creation. Since you wish to dual boot (I use virtual machines instead), this may be the time to get a larger drive and reinstall Windows after fully backing it up. – John Aug 16 '22 at 13:02
  • @NotDrJeff - The fact your computer was upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 is irrelevant to your question. There is no difference between a installation of Windows 10 that was upgraded to Windows 10 from a previous version and a "fresh" Windows 10 installation. Lenovo_recovery isn't WinRE – Ramhound Aug 20 '22 at 05:18
  • @Ramhound Thanks for your input. In the hopes of recovering some drive space, I decided to create a windows recovery drive from my win 10 installation and use the clean install option (can't remember exactly what it was called). Unfortunately, after formatting and partitioning my hard drive, the tool failed. I noticed that it had created a partition called windows 8. So it must have had some connection to the old version of Windows on the system? Anyway, had to download the win10 iso and make a completely clean installation. – Not Dr Jeff Aug 20 '22 at 23:31
  • I added a followup note about this in my answer; – John Aug 21 '22 at 00:11