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Warning: this approach presents a single point of failureĪdding a bootable repair and recovery partition to a PC’s boot/system drive is convenient, and it supports dual-boot access to the primary OS and repair/recovery facilities, but it’s subject to a potentially vexing weakness. In this article, I describe how to create a bootable recovery partition on a system’s boot/system drive. That alternate boot mechanism can come from a variety of sources, including a bootable recovery Windows image, a bootable Windows installer on a flash drive or DVD, or even a bootable partition on the very drive that’s having problems.
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The traditional approach to remediation requires arranging an alternate boot mechanism, so that the damaged system partition can be repaired or replaced. A failed update, a problematic program install, a driver problem or what-have-you can cause Windows to crash and then refuse to boot normally thereafter. From time to time, Windows 10 will go off the rails.
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