Question How do I get my recovery and installation partition back?

[RyzenNoob]

By installation partition, I mean the partition that is meant solely for reinstalling the OS and other software that is tied to my laptop

I have a MSI GL66 Pulse, in which I cloned the C: only, thinking that Acronis software had also cloned the recovery and installation partition, I wiped the original SSD.
I don't have the WinRE.wim file in the Windows recovery folder. Clearly Acronis is not as good cloning software as it was years ago

So, I'm leading myself on a hope and a prayer that nothing goes wrong with Windows, during the life cycle of my laptop

So, how do I get these partitions back? Do I send it to MSI hoping they'll somehow fix it?

 

[Lafong]

What's the best reason you need those 2 partitions?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

I cloned the C: only, thinking that Acronis software had also cloned the recovery and installation partition, I wiped the original SSD

you should have been cloning the entire disk if you wanted all partitions available.
since you only selected the partition set as the "C:" drive then "C:" was all you got.

it's not a fault with the cloning software, but a fault with your use of it.

how do I get these partitions back? Do I send it to MSI hoping they'll somehow fix it?

...for reinstalling the OS and other software that is tied to my laptop

if you wiped/formatted the entire disk then this data is gone.

you should try to go to the MSI support page(s) for this particular model and download any included applications that you want to reinstall.

you will probably need to contact MSI support for an OEM Windows install package for reinstalling the MSI provided OS.

 

[RyzenNoob]

What's the best reason you need those 2 partitions?

I just made a mistake in cloning the drive when I wanted to put a new faster drive into the laptop. I didn't do a complete clone as @JohnBonhamsGhost said. I want to be able to reinstall Windows if I ever needed to, and/or recover from doing an incomplete clone. I only managed to restore the MBR because I used an retail Windows 11 installation "disk", but didn't know until a couple of days ago, that the recovery/installation files weren't cloned either

 

[Lafong]

I think that "recovery" partition would allow you to restore to "as it was from the factory on the date of purchase" state.

Is that specifically something you want to be able to do?

As opposed to reinstalling Windows whenever you want to.

You can certainly use other applications to "restore to a known good state" without relying on anything that was on the machine from the factory.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So, I'm leading myself on a hope and a prayer that nothing goes wrong with Windows, during the life cycle of my laptop
So, how do I get these partitions back? Do I send it to MSI hoping they'll somehow fix it?

Just prepare windows installation media on USB flash drive. 8GB or larger capacity flash drive is required.
Download installation media creation tool from microsoft, run it and create your own installation media.

Installation media has all the recovery functionality from recovery partition.
BTW - recovery partition gets recreated after each major windows update.
So after half a year it will be recreated anyway (or whenever next major windows update gets released).

 

[RyzenNoob]

Just prepare windows installation media on USB flash drive. 8GB or larger capacity flash drive is required.
Download installation media creation tool from microsoft, run it and create your own installation media.

Installation media has all the recovery functionality from recovery partition.
BTW - recovery partition gets recreated after each major windows update.
So after half a year it will be recreated anyway (or whenever next major windows update gets released).

The problem is that being from a laptop, it would need a different product key etc...

And I did do that, because I had a problem with the MBR, and I had to restore the MBR using the installation media tool

 

[RyzenNoob]

I think that "recovery" partition would allow you to restore to "as it was from the factory on the date of purchase" state.

Is that specifically something you want to be able to do?

As opposed to reinstalling Windows whenever you want to.

You can certainly use other applications to "restore to a known good state" without relying on anything that was on the machine from the factory.

Start from afresh if something went wrong

 

[SkyNetRising]

The problem is that being from a laptop, it would need a different product key etc...

What?

If you had activated windows on the computer before and
you reinstall same version/same edition windows,
then there's no need for a new key.
It gets activated automatically after you connect to internet.
Activation information is saved on microsoft activation servers.

Also on laptops sold with preinstalled windows, activation key is saved in BIOS.
When you reinstall windows (same version/same edition as before) you won't even be asked for windows key.
It gets loaded from BIOS.