Save disk space by creating a USB recovery drive, and use it to restore, refresh, or reset your PC.
Bootable Drives
I learned this the hard way. Computers don’t come with bootable drives or disks these days. It used to be if your computer crashed you had multiple CDs that came with the computer to reload the operating system. Now you have to create those bootable drives on your own. You can use a flash drive or if your computer had a CD or DVD drive that will work too. The process is not difficult. I recommend following the steps from Windows Help. I came across many articles that had incorrect instructions so do be careful in what you use.
Good to know! Is this the case for a Mac as well, or only for PCs?
Seana, sorry for the delay in responding. It looks like there is an option for recovering from the internet for newer Macs. In this support file, they do recommend at the end creating a bootable drive “just in case”. I’m not as familiar with Macs so this link was a little hard for me to decipher. Here it is for you to peruse: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314.