How to Use Lenovo One Key Recovery in Windows 7, 8, 10, 11

You will learn how to use Lenovo one key recovery to protect system and data on it and recreate partition or image when Lenovo OneKey Recovery not working.

Ivy

By Ivy Updated on November 15, 2023

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🌟 Video Guide: How to Use Lenovo OneKey Recovery

About Lenovo OneKey Recovery

Security is very important for every user who use laptop or desktop, so Lenovo the world’s 2nd largest computer selling company upgrade the Lenovo One Key recovery. It’s a backup and recovery tool preinstalled in Lenovo computer, such as, Ideapad 110, and used to factory reset your system within one click. You just need to press the F11 key after restarting and you will go to the hidden recovery partition.

To be honest, Lenovo one key recovery is very useful, especially when your computer is in the event of a disaster. However, it still has some disadvantages you cannot ignore.

Lenovo Onekey recovery cannot be used on other branded computers, such as, HP, Dell, Samsung, etc.
✘ The recovery partition will be unavailable, especially after reinstalling system, resizing disk space, changing the drive letter of C: drive, etc.
✘ The latest backup will override your previous backup. That’s to say, if you use Lenovo one key recovery to create a backup image when you get your computer, the factory image backup on the disk will be removed.
✘ It only keeps the most basic utility and applications during the restoration. That's to say, the installed programs and personal data on the system partition will be lost.
✘ Besides, this recovery tool will not work as usual sometimes. And it will throw you an error message, such as, current system cannot support backup, driver initialization failed, f11 key not working, etc.

Anyway, it's helpful for users to protect system and data. And I'll introduce you to how to use Lenovo one key recovery in Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11. Please keep reading below to get details.

How to use Lenovo OneKey Recovery function

In Lenovo computer, you need to use Lenovo OneKey Recovery in the following two situations:

#1: Backup Lenovo system. You can find this software through "Start" > "All programs" > "Lenovo" > "Lenovo OneKey Recovery" if you are running system. And then, you will see the following interface, click "System Backup" to backup Lenovo laptop or desktop.

lenovo onekey recovery

#2: Recover Lenovo laptop or desktop.  If your Lenovo computer is unbootable, you need to use Lenovo OneKey recovery button (also called Novo button) to boot it and factory reset Lenovo desktop or laptop with "System Recovery" opton.

Note: The Novo button is used to boot your computer in recovery mode and start the recovery program. In general, this button is on the upper left corner of the Top nearby the Power button.

Create a bootable system backup with OneKey Recovery

To create an initial backup with one key recovery:

  1. In Windows, double-click the OneKey Recovey icon to start lenovo OneKey Recovery system. Then, click on "System Backup" in the main page.
  2. Select the backup destination and type backup notes for distinguishing, then click "Next".

lenovo-onekey-recovery

Restore Lenovo laptop or desktop with Novo button

To restore your backup with "Novo" button, use the following steps:

  1. Power off the PC and press the "Novo" button to start the Lenovo OneKey system.
  2. In the Novo Button Menu, select "System Recovery".

System Recovery

  1. Select “Restore from initial backup” or “Restore from user’s backup” , then click "Next".

Restore from Initial Backup

  1. Click "Start" and wait until the process is finished. Then, follow the instructions on the screen to configure the settings.

Note: To perform Lenovo system restore with data loss, you need to backup files on the system drive. This is because the Lenovo OneKey Recovery only deletes files on the system partition.

Lenovo OneKey Recovery not working - how to fix it easily

As mentioned earlier, Lenovo OneKey Recovery is helpful for system protection but sometimes it is not working due to any change in the system partition, such as, drive letter, clean install, etc. We summarize some practical methods in the following to help you. 

Way 1: Recreate partition with Diskpart

If you mistakenly delete data and use unallocated space on the drive, you will be told that this program cannot restore the system partition because its structure is incorrect. And it also provides you with actionable advice, you need to recreate partition to continue.

  1. Type cmd in the search box and select Run as administrator
  2. In the command prompt window, type the following commands and hit Enter one by one. 
  • list disk
  • sel disk n (n is the drive letter of system partition wth Lenovo OneKey Recovery)
  • list part
  • sel part m (m is the drive letter of recovery or OEM partition)
  • set id=12
  • exit

Recreate Recovery Partition

Way 2:  Create a new backup to recovery partition

If you change the drive letter of System Partition, you need to create a new backup to recovery partition, otherwise, you cannot perform Lenovo system restore in a disaster. Here I'll introduce you to a trust and reliable backup and recovery software like AOMEI OneKey Recovery.

👍 With it, you can make a bootable recovery partition quickly in all the operating systems, from Windows 7 to Windows 11 and server 2003 to server 2022.  Unlike Lenovo OneKey Recovery, the recovery partition will not be affected by changes in the system partition, either drive letter, disk space, unallocated space, etc. And you can use it on all computer brands, such as, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, etc.
👍 Besides, you schedule onekey system backup in daily, weekly, or monthly, and it will backup system on a regular basis once you enable it. Thus, you will get all the changes made later without deleting old backups. And it provides you with two quick recovery keys, you can choose to boot computer with F11 or A and then perform system restore quickly.

To get started, please download AOMEI OneKey Recovery and install it. To protect unlimited PCs or customize UI, you need to upgrade to Technician or Customization edition.

Download Free Trial Win 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP
Secure Download

1. Launch AOMEI OneKey Recovery after installing and click on  "OneKey System Backup" on the main page.

OKR Backup

2. Choose the recommended backup option - "Backup system to AOMEI OneKey Recovery Partition", and click "Next".

Backup system to AOMEI OneKey Recovery Partition

Notes: 
By default, the backup image created on recovery partition is hidden, so so no one can delete it without permission.
✔ Besides the recovery partition, you still can backup system to other locations with the second option.  

3. Click "Backup Options" to set normal and high compress level to compress backup image and reduce disk space it will use. Also, you can set password to avoid any unwanted access.

Backup Options

4. At the same time, you can click "Scheduler" and enable daily, weekly, or monthly schedule backup to keep changes. 

Daily

5. Select a partition to create a recovery partition and store the backup image on it. Then, tag on "Start Backup".

Select Recovery Partition

After the process, it will add a boot menu to the recovery environment. Thus, in a system crash or something like that, you can click on the shortcut icon or keep tapping "F11"/ "A" at the system startup to start the lenovo system recovery. Click "OneKey System Recovery" and then follow the on-screen instructions.

AOMEI OneKey Recovery

Recommendation: powerful OneKey Recovery software

Except for AOMEI OneKey Recovery, you still can create a bootable backup with another powerful backup and restore software - AOMEI Backupper Professional. 

  • It not only supports create system backup, but also disk backup, partition backup and file backup. 

System Backup

  • It supports daily, weekly, monthly, event triggers, and USB plug in schedule backup.
  • It is able to reduce backup images size with different features, not only compression but also splitting, incremental or differential backup, automatic backup cleanup, etc.

Automatic Backup Cleanup

  •  It still allows you to create boot repair USB or recovery environment to help you boot the computer and restore computer to earlier date, even dissimilar hardware.

Recovery Environment

Summary

Reading here, you may already know how to use Lenovo OneKey recovery in Ideapad 110 or other versions. Sometimes you may find Lenovo OneKey Recovery is not working due to different reasons and this article provides you with two practical methods to fix it easily. And you can even use the second one as Lenovo OneKey Recovery alternative. 

With it, you can backup the Lenovo system and other branded computers without effort, either backup system to recovery partition or backup system to external hard drive, depending on system disk size. And it still helps you schedule backup system in daily, weekly, or monthly, which minimizes data loss to some extent! All in all, it's a good assists for system protection!

Ivy
Ivy · Editor
Ivy is an editor of AOMEI Technology, she covers backup & restore,hard disk & partitions management and cloud files transfer and so on for AOMEI. She is an outgoing girl and enjoys helping people find solutions to their problems. She loves traveling, eating, reading and so on. She usually hangs out with friends at her leisure time.