Reinstall the Windows 10 Recovery Console (Windows RE)

Windows RE (Recovery Environment) and the Windows 10 recovery console, stored on the installation disk as a file winre.wim . This recovery console is essential for a Windows 10 PC because it allows solving errors and startup problems with integrated tools or by acting with the command prompt. Usually, unless there are hardware problems, practically every error can be solved by the Windows 10 recovery console.
This Windows RE environment is automatically installed with Windows 10 and placed inside a separate hidden partition, which also contains boot configuration data (BCD). By pressing the Start button with the right mouse button, you can open the Disk Management and notice the presence of one or two partitions with writing Reserved for the system, which is the one where Windows RE is located.
If, however, the Windows 10 recovery console Can not see it and therefore there is no screen with troubleshooting options, access to the command prompt and the ability to reset the system, the winre.wim file or the dedicated partition may have been deleted thus losing the possibility of recovering the use of the computer in case of problems. This is a problem that I had myself following the conversion of the disk to GPT to activate UEFI, since the GPT disk cannot have more than three partitions, so having two reserved partitions, I had to delete one.
Fortunately, it is possible to reinstall the Windows 10 Recovery Console following this procedure (also good for Windows 8.1) and recovering all Windows RE functions, without having to reinstall the entire system.

READ ALSO: How to open the Windows 10 recovery console

1) First of all, you need to be a computer administrator. in another guide, we have seen how to get administrator privileges in Windows 10.

2) Now download the Windows 10 installation ISO file and copy it to a USB stick. To do this you can download the Media Creation Tool and then follow the guided procedure that creates a USB flash drive or, alternatively, the DVD. Obviously it is important that the version of Windows 10 installed on the PC is downloaded, then Home or Pro, 32 bit or 64 bit.

3) Keep the USB stick created with the Windows 10 installation files attached to the PC, open Windows Explorer to see what files are in it (by pressing the keys together) Windows-E).

In Windows 10, press ALT + V to display the ribbon (if it was hidden) and open the View tab activate the checkbox of the hidden elements and then press Options. Go here in the section viewing to uncheck the option “Hide protected system files” and close the folder options. At the end of the procedure, you can come back here to put the modified options back as they were before.

4) Back in Windows, open the USB stick folder and move to the folder called sources. locate the file install.wim, hold down the SHIFT key and press the right mouse button on the file. To choose Copy as a path to store the file’s position on the clipboard. If you used the Media Creation Tool to create the Windows 10 ISO file, the install.wim file could be named install.esd . This will also be fine, but first, we need to convert it to WIM format as we will see.

5) Now, open the command prompt from the administrator, writing CMD on the Start menu search bar. On the command prompt icon, right-click on it to open it with administrator rights (Powershell is fine but the guide is based on the command prompt).

6) Only in the case where the file install.esd and not the file install.wim, you have to do the converting the esd file to a wim file by executing these commands by pressing enter after each. The conversion requires about 3-4 gigabytes of free disk space.
md c: to create a folder called “temp” on drive C.
Use this command: dism / export-image / SourceImageFile:, then press with the right mouse button after the two points and paste, then continue the line by adding / SourceIndex: 1 /DestinationImageFile:C:tempinstall.wim / Compress: max / CheckIntegrity

In the end, the complete command (in my case) is:
dism / export-image /SourceImageFile:”D:sources _install.esd “/ SourceIndex: 1 /DestinationImageFile:C:tempt

After 10 minutes or so the conversion process ends and you can find the new install.wim file in the time folder created. press on it with the right mouse button while holding down the Shift key on the keyboard to do, again, Copy path.

7) At the command prompt, we can now execute the command that installs the recovery console missing in Windows 10.
Write then dism / mount-image / imagefile: and after the two points press with the right button of the mouse and do Paste to add the complete path of the file install.wim. Complete the command by typing / index: 1 / mountdir: C: test / readonly .
In the end, the complete command in this example should look like this:
dism / mount-image /imagefile:”E:sources _install.wim “/ index: 1 / mountdir: C:

Or, if the conversion from install.esv to install.wim of point 6 had been made, it will be similar to this:
dism / mount-image /imagefile:”C:tempinstall.wim “/ index: 1 / mountdir: C:

8) After successfully installing install.wim, don’t close the command prompt yet, but go back to Windows Explorer and open drive C and go to the Test folder. Right-click on the file winre.wim and press on Copy.
Go in now C: Windows System32 Recovery, press with the right mouse button on an empty space and select Paste. Since this is a folder protected by the system, the Access Denied window will appear and you must press the Continue button to proceed with the addition of the file.

9) The image of Windows RE has therefore been restored, but it is still necessary to activate the recovery console and take another step to inform the Recovery Agent. From the command prompt still open, type or copy/paste the following command and press Enter:
reagentc / setreimage / path C: windows system32 recovery

Then execute the command
reagentc / enable

10) Finally, we need to remove the install.wim image file with the command:
dism / unmount-image / mountdir: C: test / discard

You can then delete the test folder with the install.wim file in it

11) To verify that the recovery console is enabled, type the command:
reagentc / info

The written line Windows RE status it must be Enabled

In most cases, this solves the problem and you can boot the PC with the recovery console by going to Settings> Update and Security> Restore> Advanced Startup.
You can also Start the PC in recovery mode from the command prompt by executing the following command and then restarting the PC
reagentc / boottore

Finally, if it is still not possible to create the recovery partition or if the warning “appeared after a system configuration restores” no changes have been made“, it is possible to resolve in this way.
In File Explorer, create a folder with winstall on the C drive (having 4 GB of available space).
Open the USB media with the Windows installation files in File Explorer and access the folder sources. Then copy the install.wim file to the created folder (see point 6 above to create the install.wim file).
After completing the copy, press the right mouse button while holding down the SHIFT key and choose Copy as a path to simplify the next step.
In an elevated command prompt, type the command:
reagentc / setosimage / path path file install.wim / index 1

In our case the command is
reagentc / setosimage / path C: install install.wim / index 1

Then retry the procedure starting from point 7.

READ ALSO: Ways to repair Windows 10 and create the recovery disk