Can't create a recovery drive in Windows 11.

Hi David:

I have exactly the same problem but don't see a concise answer in the discussion tree - or I'm missing something. If you've found a solution, can you put it in plain English to me?

I'm talking about the USB restoration failing - not carburetors.

Regards, Tim, in Canada.

@Chien Sage

Thanks Chien Sage for the taking the time to reply. I'm at the age of being legacy technology myself too. I decided to update my exisitng recovery drives because I bought a new laptop last week 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, that crashed on its 1st day while I was installing windows 11 updates to bring it up to date BEFORE I had created a recvovery drive. Windows wouldn't start, automatic repair didn't work, bitlocker didn't fix the problem, so I had to reinstall windows from the web,send the laptop back and then get a replacement machine, reinstall all my apps software, transfer MS Office Pro licence to the new machine, reinstall data from my obsolete machine I was updating from, so I am freshly reminded of the effort required. MY PC is PC1, the one that is OK, PC2 is my wife's machine and I sort of feel obliged to fix it.

I take your point about image copies, but know very little about it, the best software and procedures to use etc. If I can't find an easy solution to Win 11 creating a recovery drive, to work, then I guess I will do the research to explore that option. Any pointers or further information from anybody for a novice about image copies would be appreciated.

Thanks again Chien

With all due respect to you, recovery drives are legacy technology. The better way is to make images of your hard drive.

A recovery drive will provide you with troubleshooting options that you can try. That could take a long time to work through, and after all that you may not be any better off than you were when you started. A recovery drive will also allow you to reinstall Windows on your computer. You'll have to go through all the steps to install and setup Windows, then you'll have to update Windows and reinstall your software and test everything to make sure it's working right.

On the other hand, an image is an exact copy of your hard drive, compressed into a single, large file. When you restore an image, your computer goes back in time to the moment the image was made. Time travel that really works.

It's quick and easy to make images every day (once you've learned how) and it takes minutes to restore an image, and you have nothing to troubleshoot, reconfigure, reinstall or update. Windows doesn't include a supported app for making images. You'll have to get a commercial app. I use Macrium Reflect, but there are plenty of other image apps.

It's not my place to tell you what you should do, only to explain. However, once I learned how to make images and restore them (which I've needed to do on several occasions) I never bothered with recovery drives again.

@Chien Sage

Talking about carburetors, I built a Triton back in the mid 70's. A Triton was a hybrid cafe racer of the 60s and 70 in the UK. It was made from a Triumph Bonnevlle 650 engine moved into a Norton Featherbed frame, (best engine, best frame at the time) with twin carbs and twin camshafts, high compression pistons, add clip-on handle bars, long tank and racing seat. Very pretty, lots of fun. Photo from Wiki - not mine

Thanks for the further links and info, I'll go exploring

I'm at the age of being legacy technology myself too.

Me too. But don't sell yourself short. We grew up learning how to do things, which is why you'll succeed with images. Can you imagine Gen Z trying tune a carburetor, or prepare a lawnmower for the season? Not a chance - there's no app for that.

The beautiful thing about making and restoring images is how easy it is - once you've learned how to do it. The way I look at it, if I can choose between spending hours or days on complicated recovery techniques, or simply sending my computer back in time to when life was beautiful, I'll choose the latter any day. If all the king's horses and all the king's men knew about restoring an image, Humpty Dumpty would be alive today.

Image apps don't only make images. They can also do a file and folder backup and lots of other tasks that you can leave aside for now. Start with the free version of AOMEI Backupper or EaseUS To-Do Backup. You can also do research on the internet: What is an image backup? How is it different from a file and folder backup? A lot of the information you'll find was written by companies in that business. Just skim past the advertising.