What can a USB Recovery disc do?

[2DMaximus]

I've been using mac for a long time and I don't have much experience with PC or Windows.
I recently switched to PC and bought a computer with Windows 10 Pro installed. It comes with a "64-Bit USB Recovery Media".

Is this just the entire operating system on a USB drive?
Can I completely wipe my PC and use the recovery media to reinstall from scratch and repartition my drives etc? Are there any Pros and Cons of using a recovery media.

It's a really dumb question I know! The last time I reinstalled a Windows OS was more than a decade ago and I never used any type of recovery settings on Windows (and we didn't even have a USB drive big enough to carry an OS). I used to just reinstall Windows using the Install Disc or I'd just buy something new.


What if I want to install windows 8 and windows 10 on the same computer? I just repartition and install windows 10 with the recovery media and then install windows 8 on a different partition, correct? I'm a total noob when it comes to this!

Does anyone know of any good ways of having two version of windows on a Laptop? I used to use Parallels on a Mac. Is there something similar for PC? Or is it better to just boot up to another OS?

 

[ajms1989]

It just holds important files and settings to restore your system if anything bad happens. You cannot install Windows using this recovery disc.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Actually, you can, but it will just return it to the same bloatware filled crap setup it came with. Since you have a pre-activated system that came with Windows 10, if you want to do a clean install, you can use the following methods to gain installation media in USB or DVD format, and perform a clean install if you wish.

Dowload the ISO here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10


Use this tool to create USB or DVD installation media using the downloaded ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool


You can use the following method to perform a clean install after you create installation media. I'd suggest you use the USB drive that came with your system, but any flash drive of sufficient size or a DVD disk will work:

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-windows-10-clean-install.html