Windows 8.1 Restore Problem

Hello Eight Forums. I am new here and I am in a bit of a pickle here and I really hope yous can help me out. My computer is a Dell XPS and it came with Windows 8.0 installed. I first of all noticed that my computer didn't have a recovery program installed into it, which I was very upset about. I contacted Dell about it and they sent me a CD so I could use it to restore my computer if I ever needed to via the "restore everything and reinstall windows" function. Everything worked like a charm... until Windows 8.1 came along that is. I did not want to update to Windows 8.1, but eventually I had to...

After the installation, I noticed a problem that I feared would exactly happen after Windows 8.1 was installed... the recovery CD that dell sent me is completely useless now with Windows 8.1, when I tried doing the "restore everything and reinstall windows" function, I get the same old error message saying "some files are missing" which means the cd I have is completely useless now. So without any recovery partition and no CD now, I am up the creek without a paddle.

I am in dire need of help on what I could do to sort out this problem, as I would contact Dell about it, but my warranty has expired and god knows how much it is gonna cost to just get another cd from them...

The 8.1 upgrade may have set up a Reset option. Have you tried the Reset options in PC Settings, Recovery?

Follow the directions in Option One of this tutorial to download the same version of Windows 8/8.1 you have and create a ISO. Then you can burn a DVD or create a bootable flash drive to reinstall 8.1 from if needed. Works great:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/18309-windows-8-windows-8-1-iso-download-create.html

Thanks for the replies and I apologize for the late reply. Have a look at this and see what you think? I kind of desribes the same solution as you are talking about Ztruker - Download Windows 8.1 Retail and OEM .iso | Unofficial Windows Guides

I got this from a guy on the Dell forums. His name is Phillip Yip. There have been mixed replies about it.

Phillip states in his tutorial when making the bootable USB from the installation media download that you need to choose a certain option if your computer's bios is set to UEFI & Secure Boot. There is more about it in the tutorial as it is hard to explain, but my computer is set to UEFI & Secure Boot to "off". I was also wondering what option would I need to choose out of those options, if that makes sense?

I also need to know when you create the CD or USB, will you be able to use the "remove everything and reinstal windows" function as that is what I am shooting for since the CD Dell gave me no longer works with Windows 8.1

That's a very good tutorial as it also shows how to create a bootable flash drive to install Windows 8.1 from once the ISO is created.

The tutorial here does the same only it links to another, separate tutorial for that.

Both very good as far as I'm concerned.

That's good news. What about the UEFI thing & the "remove everything and reinstall windows" thing that I mentioned before??

That's what you download Windows 8.1, create the ISO and then a bootable flash drive for. You can boot it, select Repair your computer the Refresh, Reset or do a full, clean instal (what you call remove everything and reinstall windows).

I should of explained it more. I got a CD from Dell when I had Windows 8, because some media files were missing when I tried to restore my computer. What I meant was when I try to restore the computer, will this ISO work with it as the CD I got with Dell doesn't work anymore with Windows 8.1?

And what about the UEFI thing that I mentioned, there's more about it in the tutorial that Phillip posted. Go down to the section where you are creating a bootable USB, he mentioned about my BIOS settings. My bios settings are set to UEFI & Secure Boot off. I was wondering what option should I choose when I am creating the bootable USB?

Thanks for your patience lol XD

After you have the .ISO, follow the instructions here to create a UEFI aware install flash drive: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html

Thanks for the link Ztruker, but I do see something weird. In Phillip's guide, the "File System" section is set to "NTFS" where in this other guide it says to set it to "FAT32"

I also see that in this guide the partition sceme is set to "GBR for UEFI computer" where in Phillip's guide, it is set to "MBR for BIOS & UEFI computers"

The problem is which one do I choose? I don't want to choose the wrong one and make a mess out of my computer lol.

Go with the one from here: Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 ISO - Download or Create