How to Repair or Restore a Deleted Windows Recovery Partition

If you accidentally deleted your Windows recovery partition or it’s not functioning properly, don’t panic. There are several methods to repair or restore it without having to perform a clean install or refresh your system. In this article, we’ll guide you through the process step by step.

Recreating the Recovery Partition Using Disk Management

One way to recreate the recovery partition is by using the built-in Disk Management tool in Windows. Here’s how:

1. Open Disk Management by pressing the Windows key R, typing diskmgmt.msc, and pressing Enter.
2. Right-click on the unallocated space at the end of your hard drive and select “New Simple Volume”.
3. Follow the wizard to create a new partition, making sure to select “Recovery” as the file system and assign it a drive letter.
4. Once the partition is created, right-click on it and select “Mark Partition as Active”.
5. Close Disk Management and restart your computer.

After the restart, Windows should automatically detect the new recovery partition and configure it for use.

Restoring the Recovery Partition from Installation Media

If you have a Windows installation disc or USB drive, you can use it to restore the recovery partition. Here’s how:

1. Insert the Windows installation media and boot from it.
2. When the installation screen appears, click “Repair your computer”.
3. Select “Troubleshoot” > “Advanced Options” > “Command Prompt”.
4. In the Command Prompt, type the following commands, pressing Enter after each one:

   diskpart list volume select volume X (replace X with the number of your Windows partition) shrink desired=500 minimum=500 create partition primary size=500 format quick fs=fat32 label="System Reserved" assign letter="R" active exit

5. Close the Command Prompt and restart your computer.

After the restart, Windows should have a new recovery partition that you can use to troubleshoot and repair issues.

Copying the Recovery Partition from Another Device

If you have another device with a working recovery partition, you can copy its contents to your own device. Here’s how:

1. Connect the other device to your computer using a USB cable or network connection.
2. Open Disk Management on both devices and identify the recovery partition on the working device.
3. Use a file copying tool like robocopy to copy the contents of the recovery partition from the working device to a folder on your computer.
4. Open an elevated Command Prompt and navigate to the folder where you copied the recovery files.
5. Type the following command to copy the files to your device’s recovery partition:

   robocopy . \\?\Volume{GUID}\Recovery\WindowsRE /E /IS /IT /COPY:DAT /R:0 /W:0 /MT:32 /NP /NDL /NFL

   Replace {GUID} with the actual GUID of your recovery partition, which you can find in Disk Management.

6. Once the copying is complete, restart your computer and check if the recovery partition is working properly.

Keep in mind that this method requires you to have another device with a working recovery partition and may not always work, depending on the specific configuration of your devices.

Troubleshooting Tips

If you encounter any issues while repairing or restoring the recovery partition, here are some troubleshooting tips:

• Make sure you have enough free space on your hard drive to create the recovery partition.
• Check if your BIOS or UEFI settings are configured to boot from the recovery partition.
• If you’re using a third-party disk management tool, try using the built-in Disk Management instead.
• If you’re copying the recovery partition from another device, make sure the file system and partition type are compatible with your device.

In some cases, if the recovery partition is severely damaged or corrupted, you may need to perform a clean install of Windows to restore it. However, this should be a last resort option.