USB Recovery Created - But No data or files shown in the USB.

[Sam_999]

Hello, 

I just got a new Notebook 15-AY-195NR, I wanted to create a USB recovery drive and I followed the steps given by the HP Recovery Manager, I plugged in 16 Gb USB drive and followed the steps to create a USB Recovery , After the process completed, My system shows that USB has occupied with 12 GB data but when I open flash drive, I do not see any data or files or folders. How can I be assured that the recover has been created successfully. 

Can someone help me. 

[Daniel3800 · Accepted solution]

The Recovery Manager verifies the recovery drive after it creates it.  HP is probably hiding the files from you so that you don't modify or copy them.  You can try going to Control Panel -> Folder Options and unchecking Hide Protected Operating System Files and clicking Show Hidden Files and Folders (under the View tab), that may possibly reveal the files.  If you want to be sure it will work you can try using it to boot the computer (as you would to perform a system recovery).  Turn off the PC, plug in the USB drive, turn it on, and press the F9 key about once per second until the boot device option menu appears.  Select your USB drive and press Enter.  The HP Recovery Manager should eventually open and give you an option to factory reset the computer.  If so the USB drive is most likely alright. 

[WAWood]

Sam_999

Hopefully, as Daniel3800 has indicated, booting from the USB stick you created will work and will confirm that you would be able to Restore using it.

But ... the problem is that HP only gives you ONE chance to create Recovery Media, and if that fails for any reason, you are stuck.

I personally prefer to use third-party Recovery solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 10 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

Good Luck