In lenovo laptops, you can use F12 key to open boot menu. Sometimes you will also have to use Fn+F12 key to open boot menu.
Description. Recovery Media is DVD or USB media containing a backup of the original factory condition of a computer as configured by Lenovo, or a PC system user. Recovery Media allows you to reformat the hard drive, reinstall the operating system and reset the system to the original Lenovo factory condition.
Go to lenovo.com/support to download and install Windows 10 compatible device drivers and utilities. To upgrade your operating system to Windows 10, do the following: Go to windows.com/ to download the Windows Insider Program.
The instructions are:
- Insert the USB recovery media in the USB port.
- Restart your computer.
- Press F12 during booting, before or when the Lenovo logo appears.
- After the system successfully boots, select your language.
- Select your keyboard.
- Select Troubleshoot.
- Select Reset your PC.
- Click Next.
Reboot your PC. When Lenovo Logo appears on screen, press F11 to enter the hidden restore partition. At the Choose a recovery tool screen, click on Lenovo Product Recovery.
Another way to submit the order is to go to support.lenovo.com, select Get Downloads under Drivers & Software, enter the serial number for the computer, then select the Order Recovery Media tab.
To use the recovery USB drive:
- Turn off the computer.
- Insert the recovery USB drive into a USB port on the computer and turn on the computer.
- Use the Down arrow key to select the USB drive (for example, UEFI: HP v220w 2.0PMAP), and then press the Enter key.
- Click the language for your keyboard.
- Click Troubleshoot.
To open the disc creation tool, press the Windows key, type recdisc, and press Enter. The disc creator will open on the desktop. Select the disc-burner drive with a writable CD or DVD in it and click the Create disc button to create a recovery disc.
To create a bootable media, connect a USB flash drive of at least 8GB of space, and then use these steps:
- Open Windows 10 download page.
- Under the "Create Windows 10 installation media" section, click the Download tool now button to save the file on your device.
To use the media creation tool, visit the Microsoft Software Download Windows 10 page from a Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 device. You can use this page to download a disc image (ISO file) that can be used to install or reinstall Windows 10.
To create a recovery drive in Windows 10:
- In the search box next to the Start button, search for Create a recovery drive and then select it.
- When the tool opens, make sure Back up system files to the recovery drive is selected and then select Next.
- Connect a USB drive to your PC, select it, and then select Next.
Now, please be informed that you can't use the Recovery Disk/Image from a different computer (unless it is the exact make and model with exactly the same devices installed) because the Recovery Disk includes drivers and they won't be appropriate for your computer and the installation will fail.
Windows updates to improve security and PC performance periodically so it is recommended to recreate the recovery drive annually. Personal files and any applications that did not come with your PC will not be backed up. You'll need a USB drive that's at least 16 gigabytes.
To create a bootable USB flash drive
- Insert a USB flash drive into a running computer.
- Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator.
- Type diskpart .
- In the new command line window that opens, to determine the USB flash drive number or drive letter, at the command prompt, type list disk , and then click ENTER.
To create a system image to a USB drive, it must be formatted to use the NTFS file system. Then, format the USB flash drive to NTFS, but the computer displayed the information "The drive is not a valid backup location" so that you still cannot backup system to the USB drive.
- Acronis True Image. A full featured backup solution. Recommended.
- EaseUS ToDo Backup. A flexible solution in the backup arena.
- Paragon Backup & Recovery. Enterprise options for home backup.
- NovaBackup. Does the basics well, but only the basics.
- Genie Timeline. Backup app that plays nicely with your PC's other tasks.
Find Windows 10 Product Key on a New Computer
- Press Windows key + X.
- Click Command Prompt (Admin)
- At the command prompt, type: wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey. This will reveal the product key. Volume License Product Key Activation.
A system image is an exact copy of a drive. By default, a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run. Although this type of backup includes your personal files, we recommend that you back up your files regularly using Windows Backup so that you can restore individual files and folders as needed.
Create a bootable USB with external tools
- Open the program with a double-click.
- Select your USB drive in “Device”
- Select “Create a bootable disk using” and the option “ISO Image”
- Right-click on the CD-ROM symbol and select the ISO file.
- Under “New volume label”, you can enter whatever name you like for your USB drive.
Connect your external hard drive to your computer and make sure it can be detected by your machine. Click Start-> Control Panel-> System and Security-> Backup and Restore to open the program. Then, click Create a system image at the left side.
Using a Flash Drive for PC Data Backup
When used for data-only backups, flash drives can be used without any specialized software. Simply plug the drive into computer (they're plug-and-play in all recent Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems), and copy the files to be backed up to the drive.The system image contains a complete snapshot of everything on the computer's hard drive at any given time. So, if you have 500 GB of space used on a 1 TB drive, the system image will be about 500 GB.
As for imaging, I would recommend that you do it monthly, and store them on an external drive. Each month, when you create a new image, delete the image from two months before, and keep last month's and the current month (in case something goes wrong, etc redundancy is good).
