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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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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.