Steam Deck Recovery Repair USB Drive
Bootable USB drive with Steam Deck Recovery Image.This USB drive has a Type A male connector.
You will need to supply your ownUSB-C adapter or hub to plug in the USB drive.
Use this drive torecover, repair, or re-image your Steam Deck. You might need to do this if you are unable to boot, have installed another OS and would like to get back to standard Deck SteamOS, or are experiencing other breaking issues.Steam Deck Recovery Instructions
- Use a USB-C adapter or hub to plug the boot disk in.
- Shut down your Steam Deck if it isn't already off. Hold 'Volume Down' and click the Power Button - when you hear the chime, let go of the Volume Down button, and you'll be booted into the Boot Manager.
- In the Boot Manager, boot from the 'EFI USB Device' (your USB key)
- The screen will go dark while it's booting - give it a minute.
- Once booted you will be in a desktop environment, you can navigate using the trackpad and trigger.
Recovery options
In the recovery environment, there are four different options to choose from.
- Re-image Steam Deck - This performs a full factory reset - all user info, installed games, applications, or operating systems will be wiped and replaced with stock SteamOS.
- Clear local user data - This reformats the home partitions on your Steam Deck, which will remove downloaded games and all personal content stored on this Deck, including system configuration.
- Reinstall Steam OS - This will reinstall SteamOS on the Steam Deck, while attempting to preserve your games and personal content.
- Recovery tools - This opens a prompt with the ability to make changes to the Steam Deck boot partition.
Installing SteamOS on other devices
Steam is continually working to improve compatibility with other devices. Currently, expanded support includes devices with AMD hardware and an NVME drive, targeted toward handheld devices. Please note, support for all devices that is not officially 'Powered by SteamOS' is not final (currently anything that is not a Steam Deck or Legion Go S)
For most devices, you will need to disable Secure Boot on your device in order to re-image from a USB drive. This can be disabled in your device’s BIOS / UEFI menu. You can find out how to get to this setting from your manufacturer - here are sample instructions for the original Legion Go and the ROG Ally.
Legion Go / Legion Go S (Windows) - Secure Boot Settings
- Power down completely
- Hold volume + button, press power button – keep holding volume button
- In the ‘Novo Button Menu’ pick bios setup (may have to use touch screen)
- Tap More settings
- Tap Security
- Under Secure boot > pick disabled
- Tap Exit
- Tap Exit saving changes
- Follow instructions to install SteamOS on your device
ROG Ally - Secure Boot Settings
- While powered on, hit restart
- Once restarting, hold down volume + button to get to bios utility
- Hit ‘Y’ for advanced mode
- Hit dpad-right to the security tab
- Dpad down to secure boot, A to select
- Secure Boot Control to ‘disabled’
- B to go back
- Right arrow to save and exit
- Follow instructions to install SteamOS on your device
