I noticed there was a discussion concerning Recovery Drives and their capabilities and configuration. This discussion is for a UEFI systems, so please confine comments to the UEFI type install. I also have no experience with OEM systems and can only spectulate about how they might behave. Since the discussion was started in another thread, I will link to it.
http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/34761-system-recovery.html
Since I have been looking at this for a few days, I would like to share what I seem to have found.
In this discussion, I have used two Recovery Flash Drives. One was a basic drive being used with a system where a Custom Refresh Image had been created. The other is a Recovery Flash Drive which was made and allowed to copy the contents of my homemade Recovery partition. The install.wim file I used was created using DISM and was a captured image of my OS partition. It would not be advisable to use the image made with recimg.exe, since it is a Refresh image and does not contain all the files from your OS partition. If you want to know what is in a Refresh image, check the help section for that utility.
There seems to be some confusion in other forums, possibly caused by Microsoft's wording on one of their help sites that seems to imply making a CustomRefresh image will make the copy check box active during the Recovery Drive creation process. It does not, only the Recovery partition configured systems will get the check box, which seems to be what Theog is saying, but not certain since my system is not OEM and I do get the check box. as SIW2 does. The Refresh operation uses the image created on the hard drive or install media (OEM, possibly the Recovery partition).
But lets start with a standard recovery drive which does not have the install.wim copied to it, What can you you do with it? If you have made a CustomRefresh.wim, a Refresh operation will use that image and you will not be asked for install media. If not, you will be asked for install media or OEM systems may use their image in their recovery partition.
If you want to Reset the system with a Basic Recovery Flash Drive, it will ask for install media, since this basic drive would not have the image copied to it.
If you run these operations with a Recovery Flash drive on which an install.wim has been copied by the recovery drive creation utility, you can Reset without being asked for install media.
What surprised me was, when I used the Recovery drive with the copied image, I was able to restore to a clean hard drive. It does take a very long time to complete the process, possibly because of the file transfer speed of the Flash Drive. But the result is almost the same are restoring an image, except as noted below.
There are two situations you may want to be aware of during these procedures. One is the Reset operation might re-partition your drive so as to change a larger Recovery Partition back to the small 300 MB partition, or close to it if you allow it to repartition the drive.
Secondly, when you capture your image from the OS partition, there is a possibility a very large file might cause a Split image to contain a file larger than 4 GB, which could not be copied to a Fat32 Flash drive. I had one CustomRefresh.wim which did exactly that and ended up with a 5 GB section. It might be good to split your captured image yourself to make sure that would not be a problem.
I only wish to start a discussion, not give the impression everything I mention is completely correct. Any comments or amendments would be welcome.
http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/34761-system-recovery.html
Since I have been looking at this for a few days, I would like to share what I seem to have found.
In this discussion, I have used two Recovery Flash Drives. One was a basic drive being used with a system where a Custom Refresh Image had been created. The other is a Recovery Flash Drive which was made and allowed to copy the contents of my homemade Recovery partition. The install.wim file I used was created using DISM and was a captured image of my OS partition. It would not be advisable to use the image made with recimg.exe, since it is a Refresh image and does not contain all the files from your OS partition. If you want to know what is in a Refresh image, check the help section for that utility.
There seems to be some confusion in other forums, possibly caused by Microsoft's wording on one of their help sites that seems to imply making a CustomRefresh image will make the copy check box active during the Recovery Drive creation process. It does not, only the Recovery partition configured systems will get the check box, which seems to be what Theog is saying, but not certain since my system is not OEM and I do get the check box. as SIW2 does. The Refresh operation uses the image created on the hard drive or install media (OEM, possibly the Recovery partition).
But lets start with a standard recovery drive which does not have the install.wim copied to it, What can you you do with it? If you have made a CustomRefresh.wim, a Refresh operation will use that image and you will not be asked for install media. If not, you will be asked for install media or OEM systems may use their image in their recovery partition.
If you want to Reset the system with a Basic Recovery Flash Drive, it will ask for install media, since this basic drive would not have the image copied to it.
If you run these operations with a Recovery Flash drive on which an install.wim has been copied by the recovery drive creation utility, you can Reset without being asked for install media.
What surprised me was, when I used the Recovery drive with the copied image, I was able to restore to a clean hard drive. It does take a very long time to complete the process, possibly because of the file transfer speed of the Flash Drive. But the result is almost the same are restoring an image, except as noted below.
There are two situations you may want to be aware of during these procedures. One is the Reset operation might re-partition your drive so as to change a larger Recovery Partition back to the small 300 MB partition, or close to it if you allow it to repartition the drive.
Secondly, when you capture your image from the OS partition, there is a possibility a very large file might cause a Split image to contain a file larger than 4 GB, which could not be copied to a Fat32 Flash drive. I had one CustomRefresh.wim which did exactly that and ended up with a 5 GB section. It might be good to split your captured image yourself to make sure that would not be a problem.
I only wish to start a discussion, not give the impression everything I mention is completely correct. Any comments or amendments would be welcome.
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1 x64
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Home Grown
- CPU
- i7 3770K
- Motherboard
- ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
- Memory
- 16 G
- Graphics Card(s)
- EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
- Hard Drives
- Kingston SSD 240 GB