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I bought a Surface Pro 3 and I moved the recovery partition to a USB flash drive, using the built-in Windows 8 tool.

I would like to free up that USB drive and install the recovery partition on another USB drive. Is that possible? The "create a recovery drive" tool in Windows 8 will not work, because I cannot copy the recovery partition to that drive anymore (which is understandable, it was removed from the Surface).

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  • Aren't the files copied not moved when creating a recovery drive? Could you clone the whole USB?
    – Rsya Studios
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 2:07
  • They are moved altogether (if you choose that option); the idea being to open up some space on your Surface by erasing the recovery partition. Maybe cloning would be an option, but I do not know how to clone a bootable USB drive.
    – Brett
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 3:08

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Since copying the files won't work, you can try to clone the USB drive to the other:

Let the USB drive with the recovery partition be A, the blank one be B.

  1. Download ImageUSB and extract it (Winrar etc).

  2. Connect A and B to your computer and start ImageUSB.

  3. First we want to make a complete image of your pen drive and save them on the system. Now select your pen drive from the list and then click on Create from UFD option.

  4. Save it anywhere convenient (eg Desktop) and it will be saved it as .bin file on the system. Finally, click on Create image.

  5. Once it's done, select B and click Write to UFD.

Now that it's done, remember to check if B is working!

Read more here.

Other methods to clone a USB here.

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