Respond Well to Could Not Find the Recovery Environment

Are you familiar with the error could not find the recovery environment? Do you know how to resolve the Windows 10 recovery environment missing issue? This post from MiniTool shares some good fixes with you to respond well to the recovery environment problem.

Error: Could Not Find the Recovery Environment Windows 10/11

When you try to reset or refresh your Windows 10/11 PC, you may come across the error message “Could not find the recovery environment. Insert your Windows installation or recovery media, and restart your PC with the media”.

As a matter of fact, it means that you will fail to reset or refresh your computer. You are unable to use any of the Windows recovery options even if you boot into the recovery mode since there are no options (Reset your PC, Advanced Options) under the Troubleshoot section unless you insert a Windows recovery media or installation disc.

Why Windows Could Not Find the Recovery Environment

The could not find the recovery environment error can be caused by a lot of reasons. The following part lists several most likely causes.

Windows Recovery Environment is disabled so you are unable to enter it.
The corruption of the Winre.wim can also cause a failure in loading Windows Recovery Environment.
If the Windows 10/11 installation disk is broken, you will fail to enter the WinRE.
Loading Windows Recovery Environment can be hindered by issues related to the hard drive, motherboard, or BIOS/UEFI settings.

After knowing what the recovery environment problem is and why the Windows 10 recovery environment missing problem occurs, you may wonder how to solve the WinRE issue. Keep on your reading.

How to Solve the Error Could Not Find Recovery Environment

Do you know how to fix the error that Windows could not find the recovery environment when you try to reset or refresh your computer? You can find all you need to fix the error easily in the following part.

Fix 1: Enable Windows Recovery Environment

To solve the issue that Windows could not find the recovery environment, checking if the status of Windows Recovery Environment is enabled is an effective way. If not, you need to enable it.

In fact, using the REAgentC.exe tool to configure Windows Recovery Environment boot image and administer recovery options for your Windows PC is how this method works. Here are some concrete steps on how to enable Windows Recovery Environment.

Step 1: In the search bar, type Command Prompt, locate and right-click it, and choose Run as administrator to continue.

Step 2: Input the command reagentc /info to check the status of Windows Recovery Environment first. And then press the Enter key to go on.

Step 3: If you see Windows Recovery Environment is disabled, you should input the command reagentc /enable to enable it and then press Enter to go on.

You need to wait for the enabling process to be completed for a long time until a message appears and informs you that the operation is successful. After that, restart the computer and check if the error could not find the recovery environment Windows 10 is fixed.

Fix 2: Fix Corrupted or Missing Winre.wim File

You may think the Winre.wim file is alien to you. In simple terms, Winre.wim is commonly located within the Windows recovery partition. You cannot see it in Windows File Explorer since it has no drive letter.

In this way, if you want to make the Winre.wim file visible, you need to add a drive letter to the recovery partition through Disk Management or Diskpart.exe. If you are unable to find any recovery partition on your system disk, perhaps the Winre.wim file is located in C:\Recovery which is a hidden folder.

You can use Command Prompt to search the Winre.wim file. Just open Command Prompt and type dir /a /s c:\winre.wim and press Enter to search for the file. It may rarely be saved on other drives. Then you can change the C: to the corresponding drive letter. For example, to search E: drive for the file, just input dir /a /s e:\winre.wim.

When finding the available Winre.wim file, you can type the command reagent /setreimage /path C:\Recovery\WindowsRE.

Tips:

The above command is just an example. The path should be the path of the Winre.wim file so you need to type the path depending on where you find it.

On the other hand, if the Winre.wim file is corrupted, you can copy the file on another PC running the same version of Windows to your first computer. Then go to find the Install.esd file if your PC has one and extract it. When finishing, you can get the Winre.wim file.

After getting the Winre.wim file, remember to run the command reagent /setreimage /path C:\Recovery\WindowsRE (as an example) to locate Windows Recovery Environment.

Fix 3: Use Windows Installation or Recovery Media Instead

To resolve the issue could not find recovery environment, you can follow the prompt to insert the Windows installation or recovery media. This way can help you reset your computer if you fail to refresh it after choosing the Reset this PC option in your system settings.

If you have created the Windows installation recovery media on your computer, you can directly use and insert it into your PC and restart the PC from the recovery drive. Then try to reset your PC and see if the process is finished successfully.

If you have no Windows installation recovery media, you first create one. Take the steps below to create installation media.

Step 1: Click here to download the Media Creation Tool program. And then open the downloaded file and agree to the terms and conditions that pop up at the beginning.

Step 2: Tick the option Create Installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC. Then click the Next button to continue. Then it will automatically select the language, architecture, and edition according to your computer.

Step 3: Uncheck the option Use the recommended option for this PC and click Next to continue.

Step 4: Choose USB flash drive and then click Next to go on.

Step 5: Choose your USB drive. Then the Media Creation Tool will start to download some necessary files so as to create the installation device. The creation process will take a long time so wait patiently. Once the Windows installation disc or recovery drive is made successfully, you can use it to boot your PC from USB.

When booting the computer, click Repair your computer > Choose an option > Troubleshoot, and choose the Reset this PC option to reset your computer. Remember to check if the issue could not find the recovery environment still exists.

Practical Suggestion

As a matter of fact, Windows Recovery Environment and even your Windows PC cannot always function as expected. Kinds of issues like the error Windows could not find the recovery environment always come up unexpectedly.

In order to avoid taking complex operations every time the issues happen, we suggest that you should backup system when your computer works properly.

That way, the best backup software, namely, MiniTool ShadowMaker, is recommended. It is a piece of professional and brilliant backup software with a lot of powerful features. You can use it to backup files, folders, disks, and partitions as well as the operating system. It can help you not only protect your PC and backup data but also use it to perform some restoration actions.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

In addition to the backup feature, MiniTool ShadowMaker also boasts many other wonderful features such as recovery, cloning disk, sync, etc.

Here’s a brief guide on how to back up the operating system with MiniTool ShadowMaker.

Backup the Operating System

Step 1: Download and install MiniTool ShadowMaker.

Step 2: Launch the software and click Keep Trial to continue.

Step 3: Go to the Backup tab. In the beginning, the operating system is selected by default. You can view it in the SOURCE module. If you want to change, you can click the SOURCE module to choose what you want to back up. Then click OK to continue.

Step 3: Click the DESTINATION module to choose the place where you want to save the backup image. MiniTool ShadowMaker provides four paths including User, Computer, Libraries, and Shared folders. It is recommended you choose an external hard drive as the destination. Then click the OK button to continue.

Tips:

You can customize some advanced backup settings by clicking the Options button.

Option Settings

Backup Options: You can set some advanced backup parameters, for example, file size, compression level, password protection, etc.
Backup Scheme: In this section, you are allowed to choose a backup scheme to manage your disk place by deleting previous backup versions. This guide – 3 Types of Backup: Full, Incremental, Differential has more information in detail.
Schedule Settings: This feature can help you create an automatic backup. By setting a regular time point such as daily, weekly, monthly, or on-event, you can complete the backup task automatically.

Step 4: Click Back Up Now to start the backup task immediately. If you choose Back Up Later, remember to restart the task under the Manage page.

Create a Bootable Media

In order to restore the system successfully, you also need to create a bootable media. It can help you boot your computer to the MiniTool Recovery Environment when your computer cannot boot normally from the operating system.

When finishing the backup, you can keep your PC and data safe successfully. You can also try to use MiniTool ShadowMaker to perform the recovery actions. Read this article – How to Restore System with a Backup in MiniTool ShadowMaker to get more details.

Bottom Line

In conclusion, you may encounter that Windows could not find the recovery environment when you want to reset your PC. In this article, we introduce what this error is. Besides, in response to this issue, we put forward three proven solutions for you. Try to take advantage of them to resolve the issue.

As far as we are concerned, it’s important to solve various issues but making backups against a rainy day is more essential. Thus, it is recommended to backup using MiniTool ShadowMaker before certain issues occur.

If you have any problems or suggestions with MiniTool ShadowMaker, please don’t hesitate to send an email to [email protected] to contact us. We will reply to you as soon as possible.

Could Not Find the Recovery Environment FAQ

What is a PC recovery environment?

Windows Recovery Environment is a space that is designed to troubleshoot specific issues. When you encounter certain problems that make your Windows fail to boot, now you can use Windows Recovery Environment to fix it.

How do I force Windows Recovery Environment?

1. Press the Win + L key simultaneously to access the sign-in interface.
2. Go to the Start icon, select the Power option, and click Restart, at the same time, press the Shift key to restart your PC.
3. Then your PC will restart in the mode of Windows Recovery Environment.

About The Author

Nan

Position: Columnist

Nan is always interested in writing and exploring new things. Her enthusiasm for writing leads her to become an English editor. She likes to share helpful information about kinds of Android issues with readers and focuses on PC backup and restore. She also loves to read books and watch documentaries in her spare time.