Recovery options in Windows 10

If you’re having problems with your PC, the following table can help you decide which recovery option to use.

See this section

Your PC isn’t working well and you recently installed an update.

Your PC isn’t working well and it’s been a while since you installed an app, driver, or update.

Your PC won’t start, you haven’t created a recovery drive, and resetting your PC didn’t work.

Your PC won’t start and you haven’t created a recovery drive.

Your PC won’t start and you’ve created a recovery drive.

You want to reinstall your previous operating system.

Your PC isn’t working well and you recently installed an app.

Click one of the recovery options below and follow the steps to try to get things working again.

If you’ve recently installed a Windows update, uninstall the update to try to resolve the issue.

Select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > View your update history > Uninstall updates.
View update history settings

Right-click the update you want to remove, and then select Uninstall.

Important: If you’ve encrypted your device, you’ll need your BitLocker key to reset your PC If you don’t know your BitLocker key, see Find my BitLocker recovery key.

Resetting reinstalls Windows 10, but lets you choose whether to keep your files or remove them, and then reinstalls Windows. You can reset your PC from Settings, the sign-in screen, or by using a recovery drive or installation media.

Reset your PC from Settings

Select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Recovery .
Open Recovery settings

Under Reset this PC, select Get started and then choose from the options and/or settings in the table below.

Keep my files > Change settings > Preinstalled apps On

Reinstalls Windows 10 and keeps your personal files.

Removes apps and drivers you installed.

Removes changes you made to settings.

Restores any apps your PC manufacturer installed if your PC came with Windows 10.

Keep my files > Change settings > Preinstalled apps Off

Reinstalls Windows 10 and keeps your personal files.

Removes apps and drivers you installed.

Removes changes you made to settings.

Removes any apps your PC manufacturer installed.

Reinstalls Windows 10 and removes your personal files.

Removes apps and drivers you installed.

Removes changes you made to settings.

Removes any apps your PC manufacturer installed. (If your PC came with Windows 10, apps from your PC manufacturer will be reinstalled.)

Note: Remove everything > Change settings gives you two options.

Data erasure On removes files and cleans the drive. If you’re planning to donate, recycle, or sell your PC, use this option. This might take an hour or two, but it makes it harder for other people to recover files you’ve removed.

Data erasure Off just removes files. It takes less time, but is less secure.

Reset your PC from the sign-in screen

If you can’t open Settings, you can reset your PC from the sign-in screen. Here’s how:

Press Windows logo key + L to get to the sign-in screen, and then restart your PC by pressing the Shift key while you select the Power button > Restart in the lower-right corner of the screen.

Your PC will restart in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) environment.

On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Reset this PC, and then choose one of the options in the previous table.

Connect the installation media you created to your PC and reinstall Windows 10.

Open File Explorer and select the drive with the installation media.

From the root directory of the drive, double-click setup.exe, and then select Yes when asked if you’d like to allow the app to make changes to your device.

Select Change what to keep.

Select one of the following options, and then select Next:

Keep personal files and apps – This will preserve your personal data, apps, and settings.

Keep personal files only – This will preserve your personal data and settings, but all your apps will be removed.

Keep nothing – This will remove all personal data, settings, and apps.

Warning: You cannot undo a reinstallation of Windows 10. Be sure to back up your files first if you choose the Keep nothing option.

To finish, select Install to start reinstalling Windows 10 on your PC.

Your PC will restart several times during the resinstallation.

Important: If you’ve encrypted your device, you’ll need your BitLocker key to use a recovery drive to restore or reset your PC If you don’t know your BitLocker key, see Find my BitLocker recovery key.

If your PC won’t start and you haven’t created a recovery drive, download installation media and use it to restore from a system restore point or reset your PC.

Download the Windows 10 media creation tool and then run it.

Select Create installation media for another PC.

Choose a language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit).

Follow the steps to create installation media, and then select Finish.

Connect the installation media you created to your nonfunctional PC, and then turn it on.

On the initial setup screen, enter your language and other preferences, and then select Next. If you don’t see the setup screen, your PC might not be set up to boot from a drive. Check your PC manufacturer’s website for info on how to change your PC’s boot order, and then try again.

Select Repair your computer.

On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot. From there, you can:

Restore from a system restore point by selecting Advanced options > System Restore. This will remove recently installed apps, drivers, and updates that might be causing your PC problems. Restoring from a restore point won’t affect your personal files.

Important: If you’ve encrypted your device, you’ll need your BitLocker key to use a recovery drive to restore or reset your PC If you don’t know your BitLocker key, see Find my BitLocker recovery key.

If your PC won’t start, you can use a recovery drive to restore from a system restore point or recover your PC. For info on how to create a recovery drive on a working PC, see Create a recovery drive.

Note: If you are using a Surface, see Creating and using a USB recovery drive for Surface to download and create a USB recovery image specifically for your Surface device.

To restore or recover using the recovery drive:

Connect the recovery drive and turn on your PC.

Press Windows logo key + L to get to the sign-in screen, and then restart your PC by pressing the Shift key while you select the Power button> Restart in the lower-right corner of the screen.

Your PC will restart in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) environment.

On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot, and then select one of the following two options. (If you don’t see the Choose your option screen, your PC might not be set up to boot from a drive. Check your PC manufacturer’s website for info on how to change your PC’s boot order.)

To restore from a system restore point, select Advanced Options > System Restore. This won’t affect your personal files, but it will remove recently installed apps, drivers, and updates that might be causing your PC problems.

To reinstall Windows 10, select Advanced Options > Recover from a drive. This will remove your personal files, apps and drivers you installed, and changes you made to settings.

For a limited time after upgrading to Windows 10, you’ll be able to go back to your previous version of Windows by selecting the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Recovery and then selecting Get started under Go back to the previous version of Windows 10. This will keep your personal files, but it’ll remove apps and drivers installed after the upgrade, as well as any changes you made to settings. In most cases, you’ll have 10 days to go back.
Open Recovery settings

To go back, you’ll need to:

Keep everything in the windows.old and $windows.

bt folders after the upgrade.

Remove any user accounts you added after the upgrade.

Know the password you used to sign in to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 (if you used one).

Have the USB drive you used to upgrade to Windows 10 (if you used one).

Note: If you go back to Windows 8.1, some apps that came with Windows, like Mail and People, might not work anymore. To fix the apps, reinstall them from the Microsoft Store.

Note: The option in Settings to go back to your previous version of Windows is only available for a limited time after upgrading.

Info for Windows Insiders

If you’re an Insider and the current preview build isn’t working for you, select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Recovery . Under Go back to the previous version of Windows 10, select Get Started. This won’t remove your personal files, but it’ll remove recently installed apps and drivers, and change settings back to their defaults.

Going back to an earlier build won’t remove you from the Insider Program. When the next preview build is ready, it’ll be installed on your PC.

This option takes your PC back to an earlier point in time, called a system restore point. Restore points are generated when you install a new app or driver, and when you create a restore point manually. Restoring won’t affect your personal files, but it will remove apps, drivers, and updates installed after the restore point was made.

In the search box on the taskbar, type control panel,andthen choose it from the list of results

In the Control Panel search box, type recovery.

Select Recovery > Open System Restore.

In the Restore system files and setting box, select Next.

Select the restore point that you want to use in the list of results, and then select Scan for affected programs.

If you don’t see the restore point that you want to use, select the Show more restore points check box to see more restore points.

If you’re not seeing any restore points, it might be because system protection isn’t turned on. Here’s how to check:

In the search box on the taskbar, type control panel,andthen choose it from the list of results.

In the Control Panel search box, type recovery.

Select Recovery > Configure System Restore > Configure and see if the Turn on system protection option is selected.

If the Turn on system protection option is not selected, system protection isn’t turned on and there aren’t any restore points. In this scenario, you won’t be able to recovery your PC using a system restore point and will need to use one of the other recovery options listed on this page.

If the Turn on system protection option is selected, continue with step 6.

You’ll see a list of items that will be deleted if you remove this restore point. If you’re OK with the deletions, select Close> Next > Finish.

Top Two Ways to Recover Lost Partition in Windows 10, 8, 7

Partition gets lost or missing in Windows 10? Here we share two ways to help you recover lost partition in Windows 10 easily and effectively.

By Ivy / Last Updated January 13, 2021

“Oops! I’ve accidentally lost my partition!”

Generally, you should partition a storage device into one or more partitions before you use it to store data. A partition can be created either during Windows installation, in Disk Management, by using the DiskPart command, or through a specialist third-party tool. However, sometimes you might find your partition is lost, and you are unable to see it in Windows File Explorer. In Disk Management, the lost partition will appear as extra unallocated space rather than the original partition.

«I have a Windows 10 computer and I have made a big mistake! I have a hard drive that stores all my media files, but I accidentally deleted the volume and all files are gone! It now shows “Unallocated”! Is there any way to recover the deleted volume on Windows 10 and get back my files?”

This is a real example from my friend. Once a partition gets lost, deleted, or corrupted, all files in that partition are likely to be lost at the same time. In this case, you have to recover lost partition in Windows 10 and then your files will be restored.

Tip: If you want to avoid further data loss before recovery, you should pay attention to the following things.
в–ё Do not perform any operation on the hard drive.
в–ё Do not reformat the hard drive.
в–ё Do not add new items to the partition.
в–ё Do not rebuild the partition table.

Why does a partition get lost in Windows 10?

Before trying to get back the lost partition, you may want to figure out why a partition gets missing.

Corrupted partition table. Due to user error, or a virus, the partition table may be damaged or corrupted, and then led to partition loss.

User error, such as through incorrect DiskPart clean commands.

Power failure.

Bad sectors. If your partition was damaged due to a bad sector, your computer may not recognize it and then show the partition as unallocated space.

Repartition hard drive. If you repartition the hard drive, all the existing partitions will be deleted.

Loss of the volume label, drive letter, or partition name.

Hard drive changes due to an upgrade.

Is it possible to recover lost partition in Windows 10?

The majority of users think the partition is gone forever after deleting or cleaning. But you still wonder if it is possible to recover deleted volume in Windows 10 because you cannot afford data loss owing to partition loss.

Fortunately, you can recover deleted partition using a professional partition recovery tool, because your computer recognizes a partition by its partition table and boot sector. When you delete a partition on the computer, the system just removes partition information (eg: partition type, size, location, file system, etc.) from partition table rather than wiping the area occupied by the deleted volume completely. At last, you just cannot see that partition in Disk Management or File Explorer.

How to recover lost partition in Windows 10?

As mentioned above, partition loss can be caused due to a variety of different reasons. You can try the following methods — hopefully, one will work for you!

Method 1. Recover a lost partition using CMD

If you think your problem was caused by the loss of the volume label, drive letter, partition name, you can try this method to assign a drive letter to it and make it visible again in File Explorer.

Step 1. Find the lost partition in Disk Management. You can press “Win + R” and type “diskmgmt.msc” in the Run window, and then press OK to open Disk Management. If a partition is deleted, the disk space will be marked as Unallocated. Remember the partition size.

Step 2. Run CMD as administrator.

Step 3. Type diskpart in the window and press Enter.

Step 4. Type list disk and press Enter key. After that, you will see all disks on the computer.

Step 5. Type select disk # and press Enter (Replace # with the number of the hard drive that contains lost partition).

Step 6. Type list volume and press Enter.

Step 7. Type select volume # and press Enter (replace # with the number of lost partition).

Step 8. Type assign letter=# and press Enter (Replace # with an available drive letter).

Step 9. Exit this window and see if you can access that partition.

Method 2. Recover Windows 10 lost partition with an easy way

If the partition is deleted and then get lost, you can use a professional recovery program like AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to recover the missing partition. It is one of the market-leading partition recovery products. It is designed to recover lost partitions in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP with an easy step by step process that anyone can follow. To recover lost partition in Windows Server 2019, 2016, 2012 and more, please use AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.

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AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a versatile partition manager, with which you can easily manage your disk partition. It not only has the basic functions that Disk Management offers like “create partitions, delete partitions, format partitions, change drive letter, shrink partition, extend partition”, but also has many advanced features such as “convert MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, move partition, clone partition, merge partition, format large hard drive (over 32GB) to FAT32, allocate free space from one partition to another, clone hard disk”.

To recover lost partition in Windows 10 via AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, follow the steps detailed below. (PS.: you can download the demo version for a free trial).

Step 1. Find the lost partition in Disk Management. Install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Step 2. Click the disk you want to recover and select Partition Recovery Wizard on the left panel. When you get into partition recovery wizard, select a disk that you want to recover. Click Next.

Step 3. Select Fast Search. It is recommended that you select this option the first time as it is faster than Full Search. If you are unable to recover the lost partition using Fast Search then I recommend you try the Full Search option.

Step 4. Select the lost partition and click Proceed.

Step 5. Click Finish to exit this window after you see the congratulations message.

Then you can go to Windows File Explorer to check if the partition is restored. If you did not make any further operations on the partition since it is deleted and lost, the inside data will also be back and accessible now.

The way forward

In most circumstances, you can recover lost partition in Windows 10, but you should make sure you fully understand the reasons why the partition was lost to avoid it happening again in the future. If you have followed all the above steps and you still can’t use the files in your partition, then you should check for bad sectors. You can do this via the Check Partition function in AOMEI Partition Assistant.

I always suggest that you create a backup image for your partition in case anything happens. Once something goes wrong it’s far easier to restore your computer back to its previous state with a system image.