F11 System Recovery Not Working Problem

If the recovery partition in HP/Dell computer is deleted or overwritten somehow, you can’t access the recovery partition with F11 key. That means, the F11 system recovery not working problem occurs. On the other hand, you cannot boot up your computer and cannot do the system recovery.

How to get HP/Dell restore to factory settings or previous state when F11 doesn’t work?

F11 System Recovery Knowledge

For some brand computers, the manufacturer of these computers designs a special key or key combination to do their system recovery. As for Dell, HP or Lenovo computers (PCs, notebooks, desktops), the F11 key is the pivotal key to recover system to computer default settings when your computer corrupted due to hardware or software failure.

HP computer provides a built-in tool named HP Backup and Recovery Manager to recover your system to the original factory-shipped state, the recovery partition is needed. If your HP computer has some issues that you want to restore it to factory settings, turn on HP computer and immediately press the Esc key to display the Startup Menu, and then press F11 to access the HP system recovery.

Generally, Dell computers have a recovery partition that you can access to recover and restore your computer to factory settings. How to access Dell recovery partition? Boot your Dell computer, press Ctrl+F11 when the Dell logo appears, then follow the instructions to restore.

How to Solve F11 System Recovery Not Working Issue in Windows 7/8/10?

If your F11 key not working for system recovery, don’t worry, there are some solutions for you to fix F11 system recovery doesn’t work problem with the following 2 ways:

  • Reinstall your Windows OS with the Windows Installation disc.
  • Factory reset your computer with HP recovery disc (it will take 4-6 hours). You may need to backup data first.

Effective Preventive Measure – Backup Your Windows First

Compared with these two ways, backup your Windows system and recovery for HP/Dell computer is the ideal method. Luckily, you can backup system with AOMEI OneKey Recovery at ease and reset F11 as shortcut for system recovery in Windows 7/8/10.

The detailed steps to solve F11 not working are listed below:

1. Click on OneKey System Backup on home console.

2. Choose Backup system to AOMEI OneKey Recovery Partition(Recommended), and hit Next.

Tip: You could encrypt and compress the backup image with Backup Options.

3. Select an existing partition to allocate a required amount of free space (the free space should larger than the used space of system partition C: drive) for creating AOMEI OneKey Recovery Partition, and click Start Backup>>.

Tip: The backup progress will automatically create an AOMEI OneKey Recovery Partition, where a system backup image (suffix with .adi) is saved. This partition is hidden by default to prevent data from damaging.

4. After a few minutes, the system backup will be finished, showed like this. Then, click OK.

5. Click the Settings icon at the top right corner to set the F11 or A key as the shortcut to onekey system recovery, choose F11. Then the F11 system recovery not working problem will be solved easily and quickly.

Now, you can see these partitions created by AOMEI OneKey Recovery in Disk Management, like this:

Tips:

  • For GPT disk, you will get two partitions: AOMEI (boot partition) and AOMEI Recovery Partition (contains system image file suffix with .adi), all these partitions are hidden by default.
  • For MBR disk, you will get only one AOMEI Recovery Partition.
  • This powerful software also applied to other brands computers, like HP, Lenovo, Acer, Dell, Toshiba, HP and IBM, etc.
  • The program supports all editions (32-bit and 64-bit) of Windows operating system, like Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 and Windows Server 2003/2008 (R2)/2012 (R2)/2016, SBS 2003/2008/2011, WHS 2011.

Now, you could use F11 key to restore your system to factory settings or previous state.

Another Effective Preventive Measure

As a matter of fact, you could create a system backup image with AOMEI Backupper Standard to external hard drive with your computer before problems occur.

If the system crashes or other unbootable issue shows up, create bootable media to boot your computer, and then use this backup image to restore your computer.

This way only applies to preparation before problems occur. Planning ahead is the best solution.

Create System Backup Image:

1. On the main window of AOMEI Backupper Standard, select Backup, System Backup in turn.

2. Enter a proper Task Name into the box.

3. Choose the external hard drive as the destination to save the system image and click Next.

Tips: The program will select the system partition associated with system files automatically.

4. Press Start Backup.

Restore Your Computer with the System Image:

1. Connect your external hard drive with your computer and boot up your computer with the bootable media created by AOMEI Backupper Standard. Then, click Select Task under the Restore tab.

2. Then choose a backup image and click Next to move on.

3. Tick Restore this system backup or Restore a partition in this system backup and click Next. After that, preview the result of restoring, click Start Restore.