How to reinstall Windows 10 without media?
Everyone Leo Notenboom here for Askleo.com with one of what boils down to a very
common question, especially in recent years.
"I need to reinstall Windows, but I don't have an installation disk.
I never got one.
What do I do?"
So in the past, my advice has always been
to strongly ask for, get, demand by whatever, an installation disk,
when you got your machine, when you got the Windows edition that was
on your machine. That is almost impossible to do these days.
Fortunately, it's actually not as necessary as it once was.
If you're in a situation where your
machine does need to be reinstalled, especially if it's not working,
one of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to prepare.
In other words, do one of these options prior to needing to reinstall Windows.
But even if you don't, you will be able to do at least some
of them using a different machine and use that copy of Windows 10 on your machine.
My first suggestion,
and I'll show you exactly where to find it is to make a recovery drive.
So if we,in windows here, I've got my Windows 10 home machine.
If I just search for recovery drive, it brings up the recovery drive app.
This will actually allow you to make, as its name implies, a recovery drive.
What is a recovery drive?
Well, a recovery drive is to begin with a drive to repair your system.
In other words, by default,
it actually doesn't necessarily have everything to reinstall Windows,
but it does include a lot of the tools you might use to repair it.
For example, that includes the ability
to restore from a windows created image backup of that machine.
It's something that you boot from instead
of booting from windows in order to perform those kind of operations.
Now, I want to point out one very important thing.
If you create a recovery drive,
and I actually recommend that you do so make sure that this checkbox here,
backup system files to the recovery drive is also checked.
The reason I say that is when you include
that the recovery drive will take a little bit longer to build, it'll be a little bit
bigger, but it will be a Windows 10 setup disk.
In other words, it is exactly what you're looking for.
It is a disk or a USB stick from which you
can reboot and from which you can then reinstall Windows 10 from scratch.
This is probably my single biggest recommendation.
The catch here is this is one you probably want to do on the machine you eventually
plan to use it on because machines, hardware are different.
The actual copy of Windows and drivers and so forth that get installed
on the recovery drive may not match that of a different machine.
So this is one of those things that you
can do beforehand and squirrel it away somewhere.
My second suggestion is also something
that you'll want to do ahead of time, and that is create a system image.
In fact, one of the things I recommend when you get a brand new machine is
that you first before you even install any other software of your own,
install your backup utility and create a full system image of that machine
and save that somewhere, regardless of what happens after that.
That system image actually serves as
a very nice replacement for installation media.
Instead of reinstalling windows
from scratch, you simply restore that system image
and your machine is as it was on the day you got it.
My third solution, you can actually download a retail copy
of Windows 10, got a couple of articles on it.
But the bottom line is that you can download from Microsoft Windows 10
in a format that you can use to install on your machine.
The fact that you've already had Windows
10 running on that machine solves the licensing issue.
All you need to do is download that retail
version of Windows 10 from Microsoft and install it.
The catch.
And the only catch really is that this is a retail version of Windows 10.
If you got a Windows 10 that was customized by your computer manufacturer,
it Lenovo or HP or Dell or somebody else, the drivers that may have come along
on that original installation won't be present on this retail install.
That's fine. You'll get Windows 10 working,
then you can run out to the appropriate support website for your computer and get
those extra drivers for the devices that it matters for you.
And finally, the fourth solution,
something I generally don't recommend unless you need to purchase a retail
license key, and that is to buy a retail copy.
This is a scenario that always frightens me because there
are so many opportunities, honestly, to get scammed.
There are many places that will try
and sell you cheap, what they call OEM versions of Windows 10.
Those aren't necessarily legal and they
won't necessarily work on your specific hardware.
Those are the additions of windows
that are intended to work on a specific manufacturer's hardware, not everyone's.
So if you're going to buy a retail copy,
then buy a retail copy from perhaps Microsoft directly.
That way, you know, you're getting a legitimate retail copy
that will install on all the machines that support it.
I have to throw out one more option.
If you're attempting to reinstall Windows from scratch and for whatever reason,
you can't whatever the reasons were that led you to this solution.
Number five is what I call abandon ship.
If Windows has frustrated you to the point
where you're actually considering getting rid of it or you feel the need
to reinstall from scratch, consider something like Linux, it is geekier.
It does have a learning curve,
but especially these days with so much happening online instead of on our PCs,
it's actually a viable alternative for many, many people.
I have an article, should I convert to Linux that actually
talks about this in a little bit more detail?
But the bottom line is that for many people, it actually can be a viable,
useful solution if you're going to reinstall.
You might as well reinstall something else.
I hope that was helpful.
I hope that gives you some insight
on the possibilities of reinstalling Windows 10 without installation media
for updates to the article on which this video was originally based for comments
for related links and more, visit askleo.com/90182.
I'm Leo Notenboom.
This is Askleo.com.Thanks for watching.