I’ve been very stupid. I got an ASUS X555 laptop with 8.1 pre-installed, recovery partition etc. Like a good boy, I created the massive 32GB USB stick in case anything happened to my recovery partition (like me deliberately deleting it, with malice aforethought).
I played with W8.1 for maybe 3 months, and it’s loathsome and stupid – sorry if that offends those on a W8 forum, but I worked hard to get to know it; I can see how it’d be OK on a phone or maybe a tablet, but not on my non-touch laptop. Anyway, that’s just me.
So I worked through learning how to install W7, and eventually realised I’d have to delete all the partitions – when I started, I’d thought I could maybe keep the W8 Restore one in case I needed to revert to that one later. But it’s on a GPT disk, W7 doesn't install in that, so MBR it is.
I have an old W7-64 DVD with a code written on it, and used that – now it's flagging as non-genuine etc, so either the code is dodgy, or something else, God knows. So I want to go back to W8.1, wait for W10 to stabilise, then try that.
But… I've lost the USB I made. Yes, I’m beating myself over the head with a pick-axe handle as we speak.
Anyone still awake? OK, thanks for providing this excellent forum – I've studied and learned a lot. What I want to do (using your tutorials, naturally) is download W8.1, create another bootable USB, and restore using that. Questions:
Thanks again
I played with W8.1 for maybe 3 months, and it’s loathsome and stupid – sorry if that offends those on a W8 forum, but I worked hard to get to know it; I can see how it’d be OK on a phone or maybe a tablet, but not on my non-touch laptop. Anyway, that’s just me.
So I worked through learning how to install W7, and eventually realised I’d have to delete all the partitions – when I started, I’d thought I could maybe keep the W8 Restore one in case I needed to revert to that one later. But it’s on a GPT disk, W7 doesn't install in that, so MBR it is.
I have an old W7-64 DVD with a code written on it, and used that – now it's flagging as non-genuine etc, so either the code is dodgy, or something else, God knows. So I want to go back to W8.1, wait for W10 to stabilise, then try that.
But… I've lost the USB I made. Yes, I’m beating myself over the head with a pick-axe handle as we speak.
Anyone still awake? OK, thanks for providing this excellent forum – I've studied and learned a lot. What I want to do (using your tutorials, naturally) is download W8.1, create another bootable USB, and restore using that. Questions:
- What exactly goes on the USB? I mean, if I install W8.1, then manually do the drivers etc, and create the USB, will that image have the drivers etc if I have to use it to install again?
- Does that extend to software? I mean if I install Office, Firefox, all the other stuff, will that get included in the image, and automatically reinstall next time?
- Is there any way of re-creating the ASUS recovery partition I destroyed?
Thanks again
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- 8.1
- Computer type
- Laptop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- ASUS X555LA & others...