Solved New ASUS laptop has no recovery disk utlity!

[alphanumeric]

Yeah, I had started to read though that and figured it was just your basic "How to use Windows 8" type of deal. I see now that there is some ASUS related stuff near the end. That's the Reset option that we have deduced is likely the way to go. I can do that from the recovery drive (16 gig) I made that has the install.wim on it. That is something I was expecting to find in the included Notebook PC users manual. Thank you for pointing that out, looks like I have some more reading to do.

 

[alphanumeric]

Well it looks like I have a "little" egg on my face. The instructions were there, as Saltgrass pointed out, second last page of the Windows 8 user manual. That confirms what Theog suggested, the reset option. Time to mark this thread as solved I guess.

 

[TartTile8]

Well, I just ran the AsFixWFR utility ASUS supplied and now my 600 MB Recovery partition is 495 MB and I have 105 MB unallocated. As near as I can tell that's all it did? Also since its a GPT disk Windows Disk Management can't do anything with it.

HI, Thank you for this post.

I am new here and I can't seem to find the asfixwfr.exe anywhere and wasted two days waiting for asus. the one I use is a K55 model from bb. And couldn't get the asus back to me that I have to help to get the disks made but the dvd drive method always throws an error 0x8007001b something like that.

I am wondering if any where I can find this asfixwfr.exe or the best drive level backup such as easeus, macrum. the windows 7 file recovery throws this error and won't do it on a dvd.

I made a usb drive and seems there are files and I backed up the esupport directory too.

thanks in advance.

Edit: corrected the actual error code

 

[alphanumeric]

The asfixwfr.exe file was e-mailed to me by ASUS tech support. It ended up being pretty useless for me. I never bothered to make a disk set, I opted for using a USB thumb drive for my recovery drive. I've since ditched the idea of ever using the recovery drive and erased it. I downloaded a Windows 8 ISO file from TechNet and use that to do a clean install when necessary. The TechNet install media reads my embedded code and then activates online no problem. IMHO clean installs are the way to go to avoid all the OEM bloat that comes bundled with the factory install.

 

[TartTile8]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I wrote a long rant but then deleted it before I submit.

I am so disappointed by ASUS that they over looked the DVDs for people to rebuild their systems. I guess time has really caught up with us all.

Arrogant, period.

Sigh.

I found that the 0x8007001b is a known bug or defect to Windows 8 by M$ that there is work around at the end of Dec, 2012 and with at least one update but not well manifested by them and that error or 'major bug' was originated from 7.

Creating a system image on Windows 8 may fail if the CD/DVD is not formatted

and a resolution claiming to be a Windows 8 cumulative update

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 update rollup: December 2012

But I can't find any direct answer to the 2779795.

May be I am not spending any more time on the reading part of it any long.

So, M$ suggested that use a work around to format the first blank DVD first before the Windows 7 file recovery start to do the image for the first one. Then subsequent DVD until the last DVD will not require 'pre-formatting'.

I will try or sarcrifice one DVD+R, a TDK, that recommended by the M$ workaround because I don't know how a blank DVD will work after being 'formatted' manually first whether by UDF, ISO9660, Joliet, even Rockridge...

I did find out from other posts around the net that DVD-RW works for sure

Then I will see if I should update with this specific update but was not mentioned by the update description itself but many other things including some virtual stuff.

 

[TartTile8]

Got Good news - the pre-format of the blank DVD+R works...

Thanks to alphanumeric, I didn't pay attention to the email you sent me earlier. That was a fast response. So thankful and drew me to go back and re-visit what I had read before.

Well, I got a semi-'GOOD' news.

I said I was going to sacrifice the TDK DVD+R...

Not likely. Maybe a few more until I can verify that the system image is good...

I went ahead and put the 'blank' DVD into the drive then I right click on it and format and left everything default. Yes, not even a volume label.

Then it went and told in a pop up dialog that it was done.

I then search and fire up Windows 7 File Recovery, so dumb and annoying for anyone of our generation to waste time to do that...

(wonder that is the divide and conquer for future generations that ...)

Anyways, I did the same thing, and guess what....

It went and did some dvd spinning then a dialog box pop-up to tell me to prepare a dvd by writing a label....

System name - current date - current time -- 1

yes, there it is a '1'.

And it is slow as ...

I saw briefly a 'EFI' ...

Then OS (C: )...

It has twenty five percent green progress bar in a grey long rectangular box right now.

So, without the update, the work around did the impossible, formatting a DVD in UDF 1.02 format...

(There was a dialog pop up if you just hoover the DVD drive and then click on. A dialog box will open up and ask to ask how you want to use the DVD like; a USB drive or DVD and that you can choose or and then ok or cancel; I cancelled out of it.

I did just the right click with the blank DVD in and after the drive stopped spinning, then I clicked start and touched nothing to let the format function work. I did notice that the quick format is greyed out though.

Oh, my ...

AHA, the first DVD finished with a pop-up to ask to label a second disc with all the other info the same except '2'.

I removed then inserted a blank 'DVD+R' and it spined up but a dialog pop-up to tell me that the 'blank' needed to be formatted; the 'blank', I clicked ok, then it formats and popped up to say don't interrupt...

Then it said checking media and then off it went and the green progress back is half of the grey long horizontal box no...

Sigh, again.

It still formats the 'blank', not what I understood from another post somewhere that the subsequent blank will not need formatting, that is to say I have to sit there for hours...again.

The USB drive recovery drive took more than 45 minutes on an i7...

Well, it wasted me two days for something simple. I must be getting computer fatique and amnesia.

What a waste of of an important replacement for my daughter's HP DV9000. Yes, That DV9000, some day I will take it apart and bake it, until then...

I am still enjoying my Atom netbook with Crunchbang, LinuxMint, and MAC OSX, and w7u, and ...

Thanks every one.

I will be doing a Macrium procedure or EASEUS, or SEAGATE ATI...

A replacement is in fact, on its way, that this K55's aluminum touch pad - the left side edge keep sticking up and it is not slightly lower than the top of the palm rest like the right side in its trough, and cutting the fingers and thumb...

Sigh again.

EDIT: 1;35 told to label the Disc 1, and now 55 minutes later the Disc '2' is completed and I just inserted the blank '3'.
And it is an i7 and the TDK DVD+R are 16X...The total data that the program estimated at 36GB.
That is like 27.5 minutes to do 4.37GB or one DVD.

Edit 2:
I just heard the DVD drive stopped spinning and I thought that is weird, too soon...
I thought the disc '3' is done so soon.
I said gosh that is some compression with i7, what about the poor soul on Pentium B something...
And then saw the progress message changed to 'Verifying the media...'.
I did do a defrag on the C: drive though, that it was 3% fragmentation to 0% before I start.
There were two ASUS urgent updates after the system OOB first time, and first time connected to the net started (one was recovery partition something, but forgot the second) a partition was bumped up to 900MB from 600MB...( I could be wrong on this one).
Then McAfee update but I set it not to update..., then something updated before I started my 'to sacrifice test' that ended up as a real thing.
I will be uninstalling the McAfee stuff and put AVAST on later but for now it will have to be McAfee or I just let the new M$ to try its job.
So far so good.

 

[pajamas219]

Yeah, I had started to read though that and figured it was just your basic "How to use Windows 8" type of deal. I see now that there is some ASUS related stuff near the end. That's the Reset option that we have deduced is likely the way to go. I can do that from the recovery drive (16 gig) I made that has the install.wim on it. That is something I was expecting to find in the included Notebook PC users manual. Thank you for pointing that out, looks like I have some more reading to do.

alphanumeric, how did you get the flash drive to boot up and start after you created the recovery drive (16gb)? I also made a recovery drive on a usb 32gb stick and I see they formatted it as "RECOVERY" (18.8gb in total). I'm sorta new at this and I don't recognize any of the files located on the usb stick...I see boot, efi, sources folders and bootmgr, bootmgr.efi, regent.xml files.

Sorry to sound like a n00b at this, but I don't know how to use the recovery drive (I'm used to .exe file extensions). Can you please tell me what methods you used to boot from your recovery drive to access everything I just copied onto my 32gb usb stick? Is it worth it to keep these files on my flash drive, or should I just delete it and use Windows 8 ISO for a clean install?

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

 

[Wullail]

Yeah, I had started to read though that and figured it was just your basic "How to use Windows 8" type of deal. I see now that there is some ASUS related stuff near the end. That's the Reset option that we have deduced is likely the way to go. I can do that from the recovery drive (16 gig) I made that has the install.wim on it. That is something I was expecting to find in the included Notebook PC users manual. Thank you for pointing that out, looks like I have some more reading to do.

alphanumeric, how did you get the flash drive to boot up and start after you created the recovery drive (16gb)? I also made a recovery drive on a usb 32gb stick and I see they formatted it as "RECOVERY" (18.8gb in total). I'm sorta new at this and I don't recognize any of the files located on the usb stick...I see boot, efi, sources folders and bootmgr, bootmgr.efi, regent.xml files.

Sorry to sound like a n00b at this, but I don't know how to use the recovery drive (I'm used to .exe file extensions). Can you please tell me what methods you used to boot from your recovery drive to access everything I just copied onto my 32gb usb stick? Is it worth it to keep these files on my flash drive, or should I just delete it and use Windows 8 ISO for a clean install?

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Brink wrote a fairly detailed set of instructions here for this... http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2269-system-recovery-options-boot-windows-8-a.html

 

[alphanumeric]

Yeah, I had started to read though that and figured it was just your basic "How to use Windows 8" type of deal. I see now that there is some ASUS related stuff near the end. That's the Reset option that we have deduced is likely the way to go. I can do that from the recovery drive (16 gig) I made that has the install.wim on it. That is something I was expecting to find in the included Notebook PC users manual. Thank you for pointing that out, looks like I have some more reading to do.

alphanumeric, how did you get the flash drive to boot up and start after you created the recovery drive (16gb)? I also made a recovery drive on a usb 32gb stick and I see they formatted it as "RECOVERY" (18.8gb in total). I'm sorta new at this and I don't recognize any of the files located on the usb stick...I see boot, efi, sources folders and bootmgr, bootmgr.efi, regent.xml files.

Sorry to sound like a n00b at this, but I don't know how to use the recovery drive (I'm used to .exe file extensions). Can you please tell me what methods you used to boot from your recovery drive to access everything I just copied onto my 32gb usb stick? Is it worth it to keep these files on my flash drive, or should I just delete it and use Windows 8 ISO for a clean install?

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

I selected it as the boot device in my BIOS options. I told my BIOS to boot from it instead of my hard drive. You don't run it from Windows, you boot to it instead. I didn't keep mine as it was of no use to me, it didn't work with my SSD. I do believe the image of your system will ne in the wim file.

 

[pajamas219]

I selected it as the boot device in my BIOS options. I told my BIOS to boot from it instead of my hard drive. You don't run it from Windows, you boot to it instead. I didn't keep mine as it was of no use to me, it didn't work with my SSD. I do believe the image of your system will ne in the wim file.

Thanks for the reply. However, I was wondering if I even did it correctly? I restarted my laptop and pressed F2 to get to my BIOS and then proceeded to boot from the usb flash stick where I made the recovery drive. There was Boot Option #2 and Boot Option #3 which showed my usb flash stick. I didn't know what was the difference between the two, except #2 says "UEFI: UFD 3.0 Silicon-Power" and #3 says "UFD 3.0 Silicon-Power." I pressed ENTER on Boot Option #2, and since then the usb stick has been blinking like it's doing something, however it's taken all day/night showing the same screen. Did I do something wrong to have a long wait time, or am I missing a step? I'm wondering if it's normal to wait the 8-10 hours or so that it's been doing this.

 

[alphanumeric]

No it shouldn't take that long. It will take a little longer than it takes to boot to windows. UEFI is the one you want.

 

[pajamas219]

No it shouldn't take that long. It shouldn't take much longer than it takes to boot to windows. UEFI is the one you want.

Yes, I actually pressed ENTER on UEFI option. It was Boot Option #2. I'm posting this comment using my older HP laptop because my ASUS laptop has been taking this long since 4pm yesterday afternoon. My usb flash stick is still blinking as I type this. What do you recommend I should do? Should I just ESC and try again, or just do a reset? I hate that ASUS is making this difficult on users by not letting them burn recovery discs even though the manual says so in the retail box.

 

[alphanumeric]

You'll likely have to reset or power down and try again. ASUS isn't the only one. Windows 8 throws a bit of a kink in things with its reset and refresh options. I wish I could help more but I've long since done a clean install and wiped the factory partitions. My factory recovery partition is gone so there is no need for me to make a recovery drive. I install from a 4 gig thumb drive and can boot from that and do most of what you can do from the recovery thumb drive anyway. How fast you boot from the thumb drive depends on how fast it is, Cheaper slower drives will take longer, still it should ne minutes not hours. I'm off to take me dog for a walk, I'll check back on this thread latter on. You might want to start over and make a new drive. Good luck.

 

[SIW2]

Can one of you post up screenies of the recov partition and disk mgmt and dir the recov partition , that way we will find out how to make proper media from it.

When I know what it on there and where everything is, it should be doable with a simple batch file or similar.

 

[pajamas219]

You'll likely have to reset or power down and try again. ASUS isn't the only one. Windows 8 throws a bit of a kink in things with its reset and refresh options. I wish I could help more but I've long since done a clean install and wiped the factory partitions. My factory recovery partition is gone so there is no need for me to make a recovery drive. I install from a 4 gig thumb drive and can boot from that and do most of what you can do from the recovery thumb drive anyway. How fast you boot from the thumb drive depends on how fast it is, Cheaper slower drives will take longer, still it should ne minutes not hours. I'm off to take me dog for a walk, I'll check back on this thread latter on. You might want to start over and make a new drive. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I'm pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place now. I can't believe I just didn't bail out after 1 hour of my ASUS laptop being pre-occupied for nothing. Stupid me! Anyway, do you think I can just do exactly what you did, and do a clean install and wipe the factory partitions too? I'd certainly appreciate the steps needed to do what you just did because it seems as though you're more content just doing a clean install rather than deal with ASUS' shenanigans. Where can I get a Windows 8 ISO clean install? I couldn't find a download for it in the links given in the thread. Maybe I overlooked it...can you please direct me the right way? Thanks again.

 

[pajamas219]

Can one of you post up screenies of the recov partition and disk mgmt and dir the recov partition , that way we will find out how to make proper media from it.

When I know what it on there and where everything is, it should be doable with a simple batch file or similar.

SIW2, I posted screen caps of the contents (18.8gb) in the USB flash stick that I made a recovery drive out of (basically, copied the recovery partition from PC to the recovery drive using Windows "Create a recovery drive"). I've since gave up on this method and am reluctant to boot up from USB through BIOS until I can get better options/suggestions.

 

[SIW2]

Thanks, will take a look at that when I have a mo.

 

[alphanumeric]

Can one of you post up screenies of the recov partition and disk mgmt and dir the recov partition , that way we will find out how to make proper media from it.

When I know what it on there and where everything is, it should be doable with a simple batch file or similar.

Mine is just your typical Windows 8 layout, all my factory partitions are now gone. I've since wiped and reused the recovery thumb drive. I think you'll find the actual system image used for the factory recovery, the one done via a Windows 8 reset, is in a wim file in the recovery partition. When you copy the recovery partition to the recovery drive that's what gets copied over and the reason why you need a large drive. I went from a 750 gig spinner drive to a 128 gig SSD. I was trying to recover to the SSD with the image from the 750 gig factory drive. I couldn't get there from here.

 

[SIW2]

From the screenies, looks like you can just apply it. Copy your user folder somewhere first in case you want to fish stuff out later. Then format the windows partition and apply the wim to the original windows partition:

Dism /apply-image /imagefile:F:\sources\install.swm /swmfile:install*.swm /index:1 /applydir:\

You would need to adjust the paths depending where the install.swm is and the target partition.

 

[SIW2]

Is there a file on there called boot.wim? I can't see it in the screenies.