Steam Deck

A recovery image is a copy of an operating system that you can use to erase and replace the version currently on your device. This will return your device's ...

And if that happens, you now know what to do to get your device back to how it once was. But if there's a specific task you want to do, here's how you get access to the command line. This can get you back up and running without having to re-download all of your games. But the recovery image won't touch your system files, so you can be sure your device will still boot. A recovery image is a copy of an operating system that you can use to erase and replace the version currently on your device. Though if you want to keep things simple, you can [create a bootable USB stick using Etcher](https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-write-an-iso-image-file-to-usb-flash-with-etcher/) regardless of your operating system. This process will turn on your device and open the Boot Manager rather than the usual Steam interface. You may need to replace steamdeck-recovery-4.img.bz2 with the complete path to the file, such as /home/user/Downloads/steamdeck-recovery-4.img.bz2. This tells the Steam Deck to boot from your USB drive. If your USB drive has a USB-C connector, then you're all set. You're in luck—Valve provides a recovery image that makes it easy to get your device back up and running. As part of this process, you will completely wipe the contents of the USB stick.