[TheKinkajou]

So I've completed the upgrade from 8.1 pro to Windows 10 pro. I want to do a clean install so I went to control panel to create a recovery drive. After clicking next through the first screen it appears to search for eligible drives to backup to (I'm just assuming here, and I do have a 32GB USB drive plugged in), then just gives up and says it can't do it. No explanation of what went wrong. So I guess no clean install for me..

[qwertyops]

I'm having the same problem as well using two different USB drives. I can't seem to find a thread where one has successfully been able to deploy the image onto a USB using the Microsoft Utility.

[Whit Taylor]

Same problem. Very disturbing.

[owensdj]

I have the same "can't create a recovery drive" message too. What's weird is I kept trying it and one time it got past that point and looked like it would have worked if I'd had a USB flash drive to use.

You can still do a fresh reinstall. Use the Media Creation Tool to create either a DVD disk or USB flash drive with the Windows 10 install on it. Boot to that and reformat your C: drive. You'll need to install your device drivers after the install.

[Josh Hearn]

Recovery Drive is used to refresh or reset the pc. And its already saved on your hard drive. And you have to option of deleting it after you have made one on a usb or disk. But unless that usb or disk is plugged into the computer you won't be able to reset or refresh the pc if you delete the recovery partition from the computer. Not saying you would delete but this does prove what the recovery partition does. I don't think this is what you want for a full clean install. Because recovery partition and the tool that uses it is built into refresh this pc which allows you to choose a couple different options from delete all files to keep my personal files. Its irrelevant for your scenario if you want to make a recovery on usb to just use that. Because it does is the same as you going to Refresh this pc or Restore this pc (can't remember what they call it in windows 10) I think you want the ISO if your wanting a fresh clean install.

Another way to put it. A recovery drive on usb is used to troubleshoot and fix a pc that wont even boot. Because in a lot of scenarios the advanced startup screen will already come up if Windows 10 won't boot up anyway. And than the same options are gonna pop up that you already have Reset this PC.

Here is a link for you

http://www.howtogeek.com/224342/how-...ll-windows-10/

[Josh Hearn]

I wanted to add some more info so not to be confused with formatting and what you need, etc. And your mentioning of buying another usb.

To make a recovery drive the usb has to be NTSF
To make a usb drive bootable with like a windows copy, etc it has to be FAT32
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) uses Fat32 (A lot of people have to go into BIOS and change some things to be able to boot from a usb. A DVD/CD you a better chance of not having to change any setting. Cause this stuff can get tricky.

[Abubaker Hamid]

What is the use of Media Creation Tool then, My Windows 10 DVD does this better. !!!!!!