In the early days of the Windows operating system, when you installed the operating system, you were asked to create recovery or rescue discs . Some manufacturers even included these disks either in physical format or in a hard drive partition (many laptop manufacturers still include this recovery partition), but that was a thing of the past. Now it’s up to the users and we have to make our lives to create recovery discs to help with troubleshooting, and one of the best systems for this is Windows PE discs .
The “disc” is really an expression inherited from yesteryear, because obviously it was a physical CD (compact disc) in the early days, although as we have mentioned before now there are many other ways to have a recovery disc, including in a partition of the hard disk. Today we are going to deal with the hardware part of this recovery system, but before we get into the matter let’s start at the beginning.
What is Windows PE and what is it for?
If you’ve ever had to perform a system recovery or restore, you may have had to use a Linux pen drive or bootable disk to access system files and settings. Windows PE stands for “Windows Preinstallation Environment” or Windows Preinstallation Environment, and it is precisely Microsoft‘s version of these Linux Live CDs.
Similar to how Linux Live CDs work, Windows PE bootable recovery discs include a wide variety of features and tools, such as:
- Ability to prepare hard drives to install Windows 10.
- Repair ready-made installations.
- Data recovery even if you can’t boot with your hard drive.
- Set up various recovery tools.
- Set up automated tasks.
- Driver updates and troubleshooting.
While this is not all, the simplest answer to the question “what is it?” is that these recovery discs are a physical element (since a pen drive is generally used for this) to help you solve problems on your PC that cannot be solved in any other way, either because the PC does not start, or by any other reason. This is especially true if something has damaged your hard drive and you cannot start it or access the recovery partition, so as you will understand it is much better to have Windows PE on a pen drive or CD than on a disk partition.
In fact, one of the fundamental characteristics of Windows PE is that it works like Linux Live CDs in the sense that you don’t even need a hard disk to boot the PC, so it is ideal if you need to do tests with some component of hardware that is failing.
How do these recovery pen drives work?
The way recovery discs work is that they start with a base system. Windows PE is not the only bootable recovery disk base system, but it is one of the most effective when you have to work with certain Windows functions such as batch files, scripts, Win32 applications, and more.
You usually download the base system which includes various tools; Each disk contains its own set of these, as for example there are versions that focus more on security while others focus on network tools. Most include not only support for Windows applications but add a variety of free, open source tools to aid in troubleshooting and system recovery. While a lot of tools you’ve never heard of may seem intimidating, open source tools generally have community support available, and it’s quite likely that your problem was already had by someone else and had it fixed for them.
As the name suggests, bootable recovery discs run at system startup, and this means that you boot from the same pen drive instead of the PC’s hard drive, which is ideal if you are precisely trying to fix a problem. related to it or if you are trying to remove a particularly stubborn virus.
Of course, and although you can boot almost any PC with one of these disks, Microsoft does not allow using Windows PE as the main operating system, and it only gives you three days before forcing you to restart the PC. The system restores files (not stored on an external hard drive) and customizations when you restart; however, any changes you have made to the operating system on your hard drive will remain.
What are the best Windows PE disks?
Each of the Windows PE disk options also includes instructions on how to create your own bootable pen drive, so if you are reading this because you have problems and want to create one, you will have it quite easy, and in fact you will only need a functional PC with an Internet connection and obviously a USB pen drive, preferably 8 GB or more.
Let’s see what are the best options you have to create one of these discs:
- Microsoft has its own Windows PE disk that you can create from a Windows Deployment and Evaluation plug-in. It’s free, customizable, and you have step-by-step instructions to access the plugin and create your bootable USB drive.
- Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition allows you to create the recovery disc along with the addition of a wide variety of utilities. You can also take advantage of the file backup and recovery features if your problems are hard drive related.
- AOEMEI PE Builder helps you create custom recovery discs using any Windows PE distribution you already have, or you can also create one from scratch using your base system. You can add various tools, including those for maintaining the brand’s computers. It is completely free.
- Hiren’s BootCD PE is the only option on the list that is not officially supported, but users like it so much that the disc is now community supported and regularly updated. It includes several troubleshooting and recovery tools, which are also updated as needed.
Ideally, use the official version of Microsoft, but if you are looking for something more personalized or you cannot solve your problems without advanced tools, you can always try some of the other options.
