Solved Unable to use built-in ASUS recovery partition

[zli4]

sigh, really need some guide on the recovery part.

I installed Win7 on my pc, and I cant do the factory recovery as missing a required partition.

I did all the parts that SIW2's kit needed to prepare, and I am able to boot it from usb

then...no idea.

on this page
http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/39197-unable-use-built-asus-recovery-partition-6.html

Boot it up and you will get a menu. To install from .swm files, click the SWMINSTALL button on the menu. Browse to the Install.swm file. You will want to select the image called Push Button Reset or similar, it is probably image 2.

I cant find these "SWMINSTALL button or image called Push Button Reset"

not at all

the kit looks different from the one in post #70
http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/39197-unable-use-built-asus-recovery-partition-7.html

and most of the buttons dont work when clicked, like aomeipa.

maybe I did not do right in the nt6repair section?

@@

BTW, I am using the kit sized 13617 kb = = not the latest one?

 

[ultimate55]

I've created the recovery drive and I restarted my computer and pressed "F11". I selected "Refresh your PC" and I expected it to say "Please insert installation media" but this time it said "The drive where windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again"

After that failed I restarted and pressed f12 to boot directly from my flash drive. I selected "Refresh your PC" and this time the Lenovo logo appeared and it started refreshing. After it got to about 60% it failed.
"There was a problem refreshing your PC. No changed were made."
I tried these commands
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd


None worked. How can I fix this?

 

[Saltgrass]

@ultimate55

Can you get us a copy of the reagent.xml file from the Recovery drive? And perhaps your latest reagent /info readout?

I just finished a complete reinstall of 8/8.1 and have learned some things.

 

[ultimate55]

Here is the copy of reagent.xml from my recovery drive

https://mega.co.nz/#!qFUglTBC!jCQUvkxneaPXPHF78yn3BnUEhxpPkUCmtiNuu_3bLHU

Here is reagentc.exe /info

 

[Saltgrass]

I suppose you threw me a sort of curve with the Refresh operation, I was expecting you to do a Reset.

But a Refresh is meant to restore the OSes System Files. If you are using an image from the Enterprise version, I have no idea if it contains all the files necessary to refresh a Windows 8.1 system.

You might want to try renaming it to CustomRefresh.wim and put it into a folder called c:\RefreshImage and using the recimg.exe utility to set it as your Refresh image.

You might also try the trick to download an 8.1 .iso file explained in this forum....

Your reagent.xml file does not have an entry in the Downlevel line, so you may not be able to do a Reset using it either. Mine shows something like below, which is a reference back to the original Recovery tools partition and the Volume of the Recovery Image partition, which would of course be different for you.

You may also want to get rid of the Unknown partitions.

<DownlevelWinreLocation path="\Recovery\20aa6f5d-d226-11e3-9510-a21b36ea8e97" id="0" offset="1048576" guid="{0ecfd0fc-9f64-40a3-b855-f37df36822fd}"/>

In case anyone is interested, the latest 8 to 8.1 update is adding a 450 MB recovery partition instead of the 350 MB partition for UEFI installs.

 

[ultimate55]

recimg.exe didn't help.

How can I set an entry for the downlevel?

It looks like I have a lot of partitions
I also have 2 disks, I'm not even sure how disk 1 got there or if it was there when I purchased my computer.
I think the cause of this was the Linux installation that failed a few weeks back.
When I went booted into the recovery it used to say 'Please insert recovery media' but after I changed the ID of a few OEM partitions reagentc.exe started working but it also caused it to say that my disk is locked.
Is there a solution to this?

 

[SIW2]

If you have install.swm, the easiest way is to use JFX great winntsetup. You can browse to .wim, .swm, or .esd and apply the image.



https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=0053...187&ithint=file,.zip&authkey=!ANCb3Me208IFWO8

 

[ultimate55]

How do I use this?

By default drive Z is selected for the boot drive.
What should the installation drive be?

 

[Anshad Edavana]

@ultimate55

Installation drive should be your "C" drive which might be assigned with another letter in a PE. Open "C" partition and check the presence of "Users" and "Windows" folder to verify. You should format the drive ( NTFS ) before installing Windows with "WinntSetup".

In case of a GPT partitioned disk , the boot drive should be "EFI System Partition" ( ESP ). Typically ESP will be formatted with FAT32 file system.

 

[320i24v]

Hello Guys,

Kindly note that I own a Transformer Book TX300, too. I have updated from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1.
When I reboot the system, press F9, click Troubleshoot and click "Reset your PC" I get a message saying that " a required drive partition is missing".
Please believe me that I did not delete anything. I have noticed that I still have a 20 gb partition that is unusable.
I do not have any media or recovery disks from before upgrading to windows 8.1. And I was able to reset my PC before upgrading to windows 8.1

Kindly ask you guys to help me shed some light.
What is wrong? What am I doing wrong?
How can I reinstall windows?

 

[ultimate55]

I don't understand this at all, what does winntsetup really do?

I also may have discovered why it says my disk is locked. I might have changed the ID of a wrong OEM partition to recovery. How can I undo this process or change their ID's back to OEM?

 

[lvbaal]

Hello Guys,

Kindly note that I own a Transformer Book TX300, too. I have updated from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1.
When I reboot the system, press F9, click Troubleshoot and click "Reset your PC" I get a message saying that " a required drive partition is missing".
Please believe me that I did not delete anything. I have noticed that I still have a 20 gb partition that is unusable.
I do not have any media or recovery disks from before upgrading to windows 8.1. And I was able to reset my PC before upgrading to windows 8.1

Kindly ask you guys to help me shed some light.
What is wrong? What am I doing wrong?
How can I reinstall windows?

Asus support tells me that they are working on reset option after upgrading to Windows 8.1.
What's wrong is that the update 8.1 is blocking the recovery partition.
You might have to wait for Asus to come With a solution.

 

[320i24v]

Hello Guys,

Kindly note that I own a Transformer Book TX300, too. I have updated from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1.
When I reboot the system, press F9, click Troubleshoot and click "Reset your PC" I get a message saying that " a required drive partition is missing".
Please believe me that I did not delete anything. I have noticed that I still have a 20 gb partition that is unusable.
I do not have any media or recovery disks from before upgrading to windows 8.1. And I was able to reset my PC before upgrading to windows 8.1

Kindly ask you guys to help me shed some light.
What is wrong? What am I doing wrong?
How can I reinstall windows?

Asus support tells me that they are working on reset option after upgrading to Windows 8.1.
What's wrong is that the update 8.1 is blocking the recovery partition.
You might have to wait for Asus to come With a solution.

Thank you! Are you encountering the same problem? When will Asus come up with a solution?

 

[SIW2]

I need to get my hands on one of those machines to be sure, but I would guess the problem is you now have 8.1 winre.wim , but the supplied osimage is 8.0

You might try either:

registering the original 8.0 winre.wim and re registering the 8.0 osimage on the recovery partition. Probabaly be ok for reset though I don't think you will be able to refresh back to 8.0 ( There is a workaround which invloves mucking about in the registry that may do it )

OR

registering the new 8.1 winre.wim and copy the 8.1 installation image onto your machine somewhwere, then register that as the osimage. Do you have an 8.1 installation image anywhere? Probably better to use it if you have.

You do that from an elevated command prompt using reagentc.exe.

Type:

reagentc /setreimage /?

and:

reagentc /setosimage /?

it will tell you how to do it.

 

[SIW2]

I also may have discovered why it says my disk is locked.

You will get that message if there is an image mismatch.

 

[theog]

Hello Guys,

Kindly note that I own a Transformer Book TX300, too. I have updated from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1.
When I reboot the system, press F9, click Troubleshoot and click "Reset your PC" I get a message saying that " a required drive partition is missing".
Please believe me that I did not delete anything. I have noticed that I still have a 20 gb partition that is unusable.
I do not have any media or recovery disks from before upgrading to windows 8.1. And I was able to reset my PC before upgrading to windows 8.1

Kindly ask you guys to help me shed some light.
What is wrong? What am I doing wrong?
How can I reinstall windows?

Asus support tells me that they are working on reset option after upgrading to Windows 8.1.
What's wrong is that the update 8.1 is blocking the recovery partition.
You might have to wait for Asus to come With a solution.

This a MS problem not ASUS.

Write up:
http://www.technologytell.com/gadge...aves-oem-owners-with-broken-restore-function/

 

[ultimate55]

I decided to do a reset.
I've transferred all the files I needed to another computer and I booted my PC from my recovery drive.
The reset actually worked!!!
There is one problem though, on my desktop it says "Windows 8.1 Enterprise Evaluation Windows License valid for 90 days Build 9600"

How do I fix this?

 

[Saltgrass]

This a MS problem not ASUS.

I agree that Microsoft has to take the Lion's share of the responsibility for these problems. Making the 8.1 update a different OS version seems to have led to most of these situations.

I just have to wonder, where was Lenovo when Microsoft decided to create the additional 350 MB partition to attempt to solve some problems. Why did they not convey to Microsoft a 350 MB partition would not be large enough to hold the required data. It seems ASUS may be in about the same boat. The OEMs should have conveyed to their customers the dangers in moving to 8.1 and they and Microsoft should have made files available so Resets and Refreshes would have been available. Maybe Microsoft pressured them not to make the problem public, but Microsoft does not support the OEMs, their customers do.

And we have to remember, some of the folks asking questions, complicated their installs by installing another OS, so they may also be partially responsible, but are not to blame, for some of the problems. EaseUS has to accept some blame since their software disabled the recovery systems for anyone trying to increase the size of the Recovery partitions after the initial Windows 8.1 update procedure.

I am really looking forward for the next OS release to see what Microsoft has in store for us. :shock:

 

[320i24v]

I need to get my hands on one of those machines to be sure, but I would guess the problem is you now have 8.1 winre.wim , but the supplied osimage is 8.0

You might try either:

registering the original 8.0 winre.wim and re registering the 8.0 osimage on the recovery partition. Probabaly be ok for reset though I don't think you will be able to refresh back to 8.0 ( There is a workaround which invloves mucking about in the registry that may do it )

OR

registering the new 8.1 winre.wim and copy the 8.1 installation image onto your machine somewhwere, then register that as the osimage. Do you have an 8.1 installation image anywhere? Probably better to use it if you have.

You do that from an elevated command prompt using reagentc.exe.

Type:

reagentc /setreimage /?

and:

reagentc /setosimage /?

it will tell you how to do it.

i do not have win 8.1 installation image anywhere. computer came with win 8.0 and upgraded to 8.1 via the windows store and that's it.
what should i do now?

 

[Saltgrass]

My first step would be to get a new hard drive to replace the original. You could then use it to recover with a Recovery Drive, which will recover your system to bare metal. If you had a System Image Backup of the original Windows 8 install, or even your Windows 8.1 install you could use that to put yourself back to at least where you are now.

Why would you want to get back to where you are now? Because some of the roadblocks are being thrown up because a different version of an OS is already installed on the system. It might be necessary to remove that before a reset will succeed. Speaking for myself, I am reluctant to recommend anyone remove an OS without knowing for sure they have a backup. If you had the original drive removed from the system and safe, you would be protected.

But if no other procedure would work, you could apply the factory image back to your system, and use the Microsoft Deployment process to get the system back to a functional state. Knowing the Index number for the OS image would be essential, and that information may be contained in your Reagentc /Info listing.

If SIW2's procedure would reset to bare metal, that would be great.

Ordering media from the OEM is also a possibility. If it contained an image to restore the system, you would also be protected.