How to create a recovery partition in Windows 8.1

You may find it useful to set up a recovery partition in case your Windows partition ends up being corrupted or no longer available. Follow the lead and you will get a fresh recovery partition in just a few minutes.

Requirements

• Download and install EasyBCD

• Download a Windows 8.1 iso version or a live Windows 8.1 CD.

Create the recovery partition

• Right-click on the Windows icon on the taskbar.
• Select Disk Management, and the Disk Management menu will open.
• Select your primary partition on the upper part of the menu (usually named C:).
• At the bottom part of the menu, you can now view all the partition volumes for the C: partition. Right-click on the black area, a free space, and select New Simple Volume to start the partition volume creation process.
• For the Volume Size process part, in the Simple volume size in MB field, you can type 4000 (which corresponds to 4GB) and click Next.
• For the Drive Letter process part, in the Assign the following drive letter field, you can let the letter be chosen by default and click Next.
• For the Format Partition process part, in the Volume label field, you can type the volume label you want, like Recovery, and click Next.
• Click on Finish.
• You will now see the new partition volume you created on the bottom part of the Disk Management menu, named with the label you chose.

Mount the Windows recovery file

• If you have a Windows CD/DVD, insert it into your computer.
• If you have a Windows iso file, right-click on it, and select Mount.

No matter the method, you must see it with the following process:

• Right-click on the Windows icon on the taskbar.
• Select File Explorer, and a new window will open.
• Next, you must see your Windows folder among the disks.

Format the recovery partition

• Right-click on the Windows icon on the taskbar.
• Select File Explorer, and a new window will open. You should see the recovery partition volume you just created.
• Again, select File Explorer, and a new window will open. Put the first Windows on the left and the second one on the right.
• Right-click on the Windows version on the left window and click on Open.
• On the right window, open the recovery partition.
• Copy all the files from the Windows iso to the recovery partition.
• Close the windows.
• Open EasyBCD.
• On the left panel of EasyBCD, click on Add New Entry.
• On the right panel, under Portable/External Media, go to the WinPE tab.
• In the Name field, type the name you want, like Windows8Recovery.
• In the Path field, click on the folder icon on the right, browse to the recovery partition (This PC > open the partition > sources) and select the Boot.win file, then click Open.
• Click on Add Entry on the bottom right of EasyBCD, you should see a confirmation message at the bottom of the menu.
• On EasyBCD, on the left panel, go to Edit Boot Menu, and click on Save Settings.
• Close EasyBCD.

Check the recovery partition

• Restart your computer.
• You will end up in the boot menu, allowing you to choose between the first Windows partition or the recovery one.