Cannot Create Factory Recovery Media

Question

I have an XPS 8700 running Win 7 Pro & am unable to create a factory recovery media on a USB external drive.  It is difficult to get Dell Backup & Recovery to recognize the drive.  But, even when it does recognize the drive, it starts running initialize & then gives the error that a different media must be used.  The drive in question is a 2TB Western Digital My Passport.  I have read several threads with the same sort of issue but have not found a resolution. I am running the latest version of Backup & Recovery.

beamermt79 · Accepted Answer

Hmmm.  Just a thought, but are you running on USB 2 or 3?  If 3, try 2.  I've had some issues with USB 3 on my XPS 8910.

beamermt79 · Answer

I would think its because the drive is too big.  Its designed to make DVDs or USB Thumb Drives around 16GB +/-.  It probably sees the 2TB drive and freaks out.

Eagle74 · Answer

Thanks for the help.  I was thinking along the same lines so I created a 32 GB partition on the drive, & it gives me the same error, 'operation could not be completed, please connect a different device to proceed with this feature.'  It actually gets the initialization to 100%, but it chokes when it is transitioning to the next step.  I will try a USB flash drive.

Eagle74 · Answer

Thanks for the help.  Yes, I could not resist using my USB 3.0 on something that actually uses it.  I will try the drive in one of the 2.0 ports tonight.  If that doesn't work, I'll try a USB 2.0 flash drive in a 2.0 port.

Eagle74 · Answer

Success...the low-tech 16 GB USB 2.0 flash drive plugged into a 2.0 port created the factory recovery media with no issues.  Took about 50 minutes.  For the record, plugging the 2 TB drive into a 2.0 slot had the same error as before. I really do appreciate your help.

beamermt79 · Answer

Nice!  Glad it worked out!

Windows General

Cannot Create Factory Recovery Media