Why does USB Cloud Recovery need 32GB's of storage?

[TimmSkiller]

Hello. I'm trying to create a Recovery USB Flash Drive for my EliteBook Folio 9480m, just in case of an OS corruption, and because when I bought the computer, it was a clean Windows Install, without drivers.

When I open the software, it works and loads normally, until I get to the USB detection step.

It says USB Drives smaller than 16GB will not be listed.

My question here: Why does it need THAT much storage?

A normal Windows 10 Pro Installation Media is only 4.5GB.

And with drivers, it could add up to 6 or 7 GB.

I currently don't have any drives larger than 8GB, so what can I do to get my media?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I believe the cloud recovery client utility installs not only Windows, but all of the programs, drivers, etc that would have come with the PC from the factory.

Most likely the HP images are in excess of 16 GB, so the next largest size flash drive is 32 GB.

[TimmSkiller]

Now that I don't have any USB Drives larger than 8GB, though I do have external hard drives that capacity, like 128GB.

But when I plug them in, the drives don't show up as an option. That's kinda weird because the drives also are USB.

So I really am stranded not having a large USB Drive, and that's a problem because I live in an area where the markets are far away from me. So what can I do from here?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

The only other option that I can think of until you can get a 32 GB USB flash drive would be to use a free disk imaging utility such as the Macrium Reflect software that many of us use to create a disk image, and bootable DVD or USB rescue media that allows you to access the disk image you saved to a portable hard drive.

You can update the image anytime you want.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree