How to Copy/Move Recovery Partition to USB or Another Hard drive [2 Ways]
Can you copy a recovery partition to another hard drive? On this page, you'll learn two different ways to copy and move recovery partition to USB or another hard drive in Windows 10/8/7. Let's start.
PAGE CONTENT:
- Advantages of copying recovery partition to USB
- Method 1. Copy Recovery Partition to USB with Windows Built-in Tool
- Method 2. Move Recovery Partition to Another Hard Drive with Third-Party Tool
Overview of Recovery Partition
A recovery partition is a volume existing on the system disk with no drive letter. It contains important system recovery information that when a disaster attacks or system failure occurs, you can apply the recovery partition to perform factory reset on a Windows computer. Mostly, it's shipped with a new laptop or desktop, and sometimes it is automatically generated when you install Windows OS.
Advantages of Copying Recovery Partition to USB or Another Drive
So why are many users attempting to copy or move copy recovery partition to USB, new hard drive, or SSD? Below are two common reasons and advantages of moving recovery partitions:
1. Free Up Disk Space
Sometimes, the recovery partition takes up much space. Moving it to a bootable USB or external hard drive helps to free up local disk space.
2. Protect Recovery Partition Information
Sometimes, the entire computer hard disk can go down and won't boot due to logical or physical errors. Moving recovery partition to a new hard drive or bootable USB can protect recovery partition information and rescue the computer from the worst scenarios.
How-to Tutorial: Copy Recovery Partition to USB or New Hard Drive [2 Ways]
According to different needs, here we collected two efficient ways that can help. Pick a suitable method and follow to safely copy and move the recovery partition to a target device - USB drive or another drive now.
Method 1. Copy Recovery Partition to USB with Windows Built-in Tool
Applies to: Copy recovery partition to USB.
- Source: Microsoft Support
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-a-usb-recovery-drive-460091d5-1e8f-cb33-2d17-8fdef77412d5
Windows has a built-in tool for making repaired copies of Windows. It's a good way for users to back up the recovery partition. It's also known as creating USB recovery drive. This method is officially provided by Microsoft that you can apply this method to copy recovery partition to USB drive.
Needed Tools: A USB flash drive, external hard drive, empty, bigger than 16GB (suggested), FAT32.
Which one to pick? Here is Editor's Pick:
- If you prefer to back up your entire computer to cloud, Qiling Backup + OneDrive/Google Drive/Dropbox is the best.
- If you only want an economic cloud backup service to back up some computer folder, either OneDrive or Google Drive is good.
Now, it's your turn to pick up a cloud backup solution to start backing up your computer files to the cloud now.
Here are the detailed steps to copy recovery partition to USB with Windows Built-in tool:
Step 1. Right-click the Windows icon on your computer and click "Search".
Step 2. Enter recovery drive in the search box, and then select "Create a recovery drive".
Step 3. Check "Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive" when the recovery drive tool opens, and then select "Next".
Step 4. Insert a USB flash drive or external disk into your PC, select it and then select "Next".
Step 5. Select "Create". It will start to copy the recovery partition to the USB or hard drive.
Note: If you want to delete the recovery partition to free up space on your disk, continue with the following steps. If not, you may stop here.
Step 6. When the process completes, to remove recovery partition and free up disk space, select "Delete the recovery partition".
Step 7. Then select "Delete". When the removal is done, select "Finish".
Step 8. Remove the USB drive.
Now, you can reset or restore your system from the recovery USB anytime without a recovery partition on your computer.
Tip
1. To make the recovery USB work anytime, keep it in a safe place and don't save other files or data on it.
2. If you upgraded the computer to Windows 10, while the USB recovery drive contains an older OS. Remember to upgrade to Windows 10 after you refresh or reset your PC with the drive.
Method 2. Clone/Move Recovery Partition to Another Drive with Qiling Cloning Software
Applies to: Copy recovery partition to USB or another drive, clone recovery partition to an SSD.
Another efficient way that you can try is to turn to third-party tools for help. Here, we recommend you try Qiling system backup software - Disk Master. Check what Qiling backup software can do for you:
- Copy recovery partition to the USB drive.
- Clone everything in the recovery partition to another drive - HDD/SSD.
- Easy & Fast: 1-click to copy and move recovery partition.
Compared to Windows built-in recovery tool, this software with its disk/partition clone feature is more reliable in copying and moving recovery partition. Download the software and see how to copy recovery partition to a new hard drive or USB drive:
(The guide below shows you how to clone a partition to another drive. Change the target device if you need.)
Tools: An external USB drive, another hard drive or SSD, empty. Connect the external drive to your PC first.
Step 1. Launch Qiling Backup and select the "Clone" feature from the list on the tool page.
Step 2. Select one partition or several partitions that you want to clone and click "Next".
Step 3. Select destination - new disk (HDD/SSD) to save cloned partitions with data, then click "Next".
Step 4. Then click "Proceed" to execute all operations and clone one or multiple partitions into new disk drive.
If your destination disk is an SSD, check to "Optimize for SSD" to improve SSD performance.
Tip
Sector by sector backup - All the data sectors and blank ones are to be backed up with Sector by sector backup checked. It is useful when file system error occurs. It slows down the backup speed with a relatively larger image compared with normal backup.
Destination - Click the folder icon to modify your backup destination.
Plan name and Description - An accurate plan name and appropriate description will help you distinguish easily.
A schedule is to create an automatic backup plan.
Backup options are to edit the advanced parameters.
Image-reserve strategy is to reserve the limited image as per image retention rule.
Bonus Tip: Recovery Partition Alternative - Create OS Backup
According to some reason, sometimes, the recovery partition may not 100% work on your computer when you want to refresh or restore your computer to a previous healthy state.
That's why we come up with the bonus tip here. A recovery partition alternative resolution - to create an OS backup of your computer.
Qiling Backup with its OS backup feature makes the process easy for all levels of users.
Copy and Move Recovery Partition Is Possible, Start Now
On this page, we explained what is recovery partition and what people mainly use it for. When your system drive is out of space or in order to protect the recovery partition information, you can copy and move the recovery partition to USB or another drive.
To do so, you have two ways to go: 1. Turn to Windows built-in tool - Recovery Drive; 2. Let Qiling Backup with its disk partition clone feature help.
For Windows beginners, we would like to recommend you try Qiling Backup. Copying and moving the recovery partition to USB or another drive is possible. Take your steps and let's start now.
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