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Create a USB recovery drive for Windows
Dell recommends that you create a recovery drive to troubleshoot and fix problems that may occur with Windows. An empty
USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 16 GB is required to create the recovery drive.
NOTE:
The following steps may vary depending on the version of Windows installed. Refer to the
for
latest instructions.
1. Connect the USB flash drive to your computer.
2. In Windows search, type
Recovery
.
3. In the search results, click
Create a recovery drive
.
The
User Account Control
window is displayed.
4. Click
Yes
to continue.
The
Recovery Drive
window is displayed.
5. Select
Back up system files to the recovery drive
and click
Next
.
6. Select the
USB flash drive
and click
Next
.
A message appears, indicating that all data in the USB flash drive will be deleted.
7. Click
Create
.
NOTE:
This process may take several minutes to complete.
8. Click
Finish
.
Reinstall Windows using a USB recovery drive
CAUTION:
This process formats the hard drive and removes all data on your computer. Ensure that you back up
data on your computer before beginning this task.
NOTE:
Before reinstalling Windows, ensure your computer has more than 2 GB of memory and more than 32 GB of storage
space.
1. Connect the USB recovery drive to your computer.
2. Restart your computer.
3. Press F12 after the Dell logo is displayed on the screen to access the boot menu.
A
Preparing one-time boot menu
message appears.
4. After the boot menu loads, select the USB recovery device under
UEFI BOOT
.
The system reboots and a screen to
Choose the keyboard layout
is displayed.
5. Choose your keyboard layout.
6. In the
Choose an option
screen, click
Troubleshoot
.
7. Click
Recover from a drive
.
8. Choose one of the following options:
●
Just remove my files
to do a quick format.
●
Fully clean the drive
to do a complete format.
9. Click
Recover
to start the recovery process.
This will take several minutes to complete and your computer will restart during this process.
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Create a USB recovery drive for Windows