BRING YOUR OWN
Luckily, you have a number of options should you wish to build up a more permanent collection of tools and utilities. Portable apps can be stored on another drive — a USB flash drive, say, or shared network folder. Access them via the Windows PE environment when needed.
A more elegant solution, and one that incorporates your applications directly into your recovery drive (with shortcuts through the Start menu), is to follow the ‘Add apps to your drive’ box on the right. Also take the time to explore some of the other options that Win10PESE provides. Explore the various sections of the disk-creation tool; expand ‘Shell’, for example, and you can change the packaged Start menu, plus configure its appearance. Expand ‘Components’, and you can choose which Windows tools and accessories to include — add the .NET Framework to support a wider range of applications, for example.
If you have a virtual Windows machine to hand using a tool such as VirtualBox ( www.virtualbox.org), use it to test your recovery disc — open ‘ VirtualTest’ and select ‘ VirtualBox Emulation’ to set up a dedicated virtual machine to test the ISO file with. It’s a great way to check to see what effect your tweaks have, without having to recreate a USB flash drive or boot from your PC each time. But do remember to test the final disc or drive on your actual PC when you’ve got it working to your satisfaction, to make sure.
TROUBLESHOOT YOUR PC
Your recovery discs have been created, waiting for the time they’ll be needed. Now your PC is refusing to boot and you’ve whisked out your recovery discs. What to do?
First, we recommend taking a drive image of the system partitions before you start attempting to fix things. Use Lazesoft for this task, unless you have an emergency boot disc coupled to your existing system imaging tool (such as Macrium Reflect Free) — in which case use that.
With the drive image in place, you can start to attempt a fix for your problem. Begin with your Windows installation disc, to see if its Automatic Repair tool can get Windows up and running again. Make a careful note of any error messages if the problem persists, then move on to Lazesoft’s Windows Recovery component (see the box on the previous page). If Lazesoft’s fix-it tools fail to fix your loading problems, bring out the Win10PESE disc. Boot from this, then use the tools onboard — such as Remote Regedit — to try to fix known problems.
Don’t forget your internet connection — use Firefox to browse for possible solutions to error messages, plus download additional software you might need, but that you didn’t include on the disc. This is particularly handy if you’re battling malware infections — you can track down specific removal tools or locate your vendor’s portable scanning toolkit, should our other suggestions fail to yield results.