Recovery Drive Creator Cannot Recognize Any USB

Dell XPS 8960 / Windows 11 Pro / 64 Bit / 22H2 / ( OS Build 26.100.3194 )

I need to recreate a Recovery Drive USB. However, now I cannot.
I have tried two other USB ports, and also used a different USB drive, still the creator would not recognize a USB.
I can access the USB drives, copy or paste into them.

Cheers

Can you try different bootable media software?
Here's a list of items you can try:
1. Visit Windows 11 Download page, then follow "Create Windows 11 Installation Media" path
2. Try Rufus and see if it will build you a bootable installer
3. If you're running an image backup tool such as Macrium Reflect, Hasleo Backup or AOMEI Backupper, all have "rescue disk" or "rescue media" facilities that create bootable USBs
Let me know if you need more.

HTH,
--Ed--

are you using the built-in windows wizard? (looks like it but want to be sure)

%WinDir%\system32\RecoveryDrive.exe

Could it be because it's FAT32?

Caxtin said:

need to recreate a Recovery Drive USB. However, now I cannot.
I have tried two other USB ports, and also used a different USB drive, still the creator would not recognize a USB.
I can access the USB drives, copy or paste into them.

Click to expand...

Have you tried just restarting Windows? That's the first thing I try if Windows starts behaving 'oddly'.

Winuser said:

Could it be because it's FAT32?

Click to expand...

No, the recovery drive creator requires a Fat32 usb.

Ed Tittel said:

Can you try different bootable media software?
Here's a list of items you can try:
1. Visit Windows 11 Download page, then follow "Create Windows 11 Installation Media" path
2. Try Rufus and see if it will build you a bootable installer
3. If you're running an image backup tool such as Macrium Reflect, Hasleo Backup or AOMEI Backupper, all have "rescue disk" or "rescue media" facilities that create bootable USBs
Let me know if you need more.

HTH,
--Ed--

Click to expand...

Thank you!
I have AOMEI Backupper images and a Bootable Media ( USB ) drive, which I tend to re-create after any Backupper update.
Isn't the Backuppper Bootable Media ( USB ) different from the Windows Recovery Drive?
- AOMEI Backupper - 840 MB files in a 2 GB USB drive
- Windows 11 Recovery Drive - 29.2 GB files in a 32 GB USB drive, which I assume this one has Windows and all the small partition information in the OS drive in the computer. I assume creating with a Installation Media with Rufus will just create a bootable USB drive, while the Widows Recovery drive (if created), would have all the OS drive had when I first got the computer.

I use the AOMEI Backupper Bootable Media ( USB ) to restore an image, usually if the media is in an external drive.

I have used the Windows Recovery Drive, to restore my computer to factory state. This drive is what I am trying to re-create. I created one after I got this computer not long ago.

Cheers

Bree said:

Have you tried just restarting Windows? That's the first thing I try if Windows starts behaving 'oddly'.

Click to expand...

I have completely shut down the PC, restarted, and still the same.
Also, I went further. Say once in six months or so, I tend to create a Windows USB with the "Create Windows 11 Installation Media", and reinstall Windows, which refreshes and 'repairs' my OS. Still, the computer could not see the USB media in any port, or different USB media.

Cheers

plug your usb into a usb 2.0 slot and not a 3.0 slot

also - format the usb as ntfs and reboot with it still plugged in. the recovery creation will format it as fat32 when needed

possibly need a 64 GB flash drive as Windows size is near to the 32 GB drive size.