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Asus UX32VD Factory Reset problem! (F9 won't open recovery partition)

keskeerik
Level 7
Hi all,

I decided I wanted to use the Win 8 Refresh/Reset option to get my laptop to work as quickly as it did at first few months. These options didn't work and I read that they are most likely connected to the Win 8.1 upgrade. My UX32VD came with Win 8 preinstalled and I upgraded to 8.1 from Windows app store and everything went smoothly. Then I found out about the option to recover it to factory settings as described here http://support.asus.com/Troubleshooting/detail.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=G73Sw&os=&no=1775

But then the F9 method didn't do anything. It was mentioned in Asus website http://support.asus.com/FAQ/detail.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Eee%20PC%201000HA/Linux&p=20&s=1&os=&hashedid... that you have to disable boot booster so that the boot wouldn't skip the Asus logo splash screen for the F9 launch to recovery mode to work but there is no Boot Booster option in my Bios (the Bios version is the latest 214. My laptop went to Asus official repair in the past when my iSSD failed and they replaced the motherboard and after that the Asus loading screen was replaced with the windows loading screen when booting up. I have not changed any components from stock nor modified any partitions myself. Under disc management it still shows that I have the 20GB recovery partition. Here is a screenshot if that helps anything


I also used MiniTool partition wizard just to see if the recovery partition is allright and I can see that the files boot.wim and install.wim files are all there



Is there any solution to revert back to the factory settings? To disable the boot booster somehow or make it boot straight into the recovery partition? To make it active somehow? If I choose boot options when Bios loads then it only shows my HDD Windows boot manager and the 24gb SSD. Maybe the Asus original boot settings or MBR got corrupted somehow with the 8.1 upgrade? I also tried using the Asus recovery utlity that is supposed to launch directly to the recovery partition console but that launched me to the Windows recovery environement which as mentioned earlier didn't work.

Thanks to anyone with good ideas in advance, let me know if you need any other kind of info about the system
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8 REPLIES 8

cl-Albert
US Customer Loyalty Agent
Our FAQs may need to be updated for Win8 and Win8.1, but your partitions look okay at least as far as I can tell.
Recovering or 'resetting' (in Win8/8.1 lingo) erases everything, so make sure you have backed up anything you want to keep.

Anyway, you might be able to catch the 'F9' during a restart or power up, but you can also access the Win8.1 reset/recovery function (same as F9) by either of the 2 methods below.
1. In Win8.1 open the settings charm, click on 'Change PC Settings, select 'Update and recovery' select 'Recovery' on the left, and choose the 'Get started' under the 'Remove everything and reinstall Windows' section to begin the recovery process.
2. Hold the shift key as you restart Win8.1 to get into the 'advanced startup' (which you can also access under the same 'Recovery' page in item #1 above, but it's easier this way?).
After entering advanced startup, select 'Troubleshoot' (wait for the next screen before clicking again) and then 'Reset your PC' to recover back to Win8 which erases everything.

By the way if you haven't already, later on you may want to consider downloading the ASUS backtracker software (search backtracker from the ASUS downloads) to save a copy of your ASUS Win8 factory image to a 16Gb or larger USB drive just in case something happens to your recovery partition and you need it later.

keskeerik
Level 7
Thank you very much for your reply,

Unfortunately I have already tried these options. I cant access PC setting anymore because Metro style apps dont work anymore after 8.1 install, the PC settings just close instantly so I am stuck in desktop and it also wont open also from control panel. I tried the Asus backtracer utlity to access the refresh/reset options and then it starts but an error appears "Could not find the recovery environement. Insert your Windows installation media and restart your PC with the media" The problem where it asks for media was described somewhere as:

"When you upgrade to Windows 8.1 through the Windows Store, you essentially get a brand new OS. Therefore, you can’t use your original Windows 8.0 install media to reset or refresh Windows 8.1 if you ever need to. Even if you have your original Windows 8 install media in the drive, you will get an error message when you attempt to refresh or reset your PC, asking you to provide the install media. However, you were never provided the install media and you are stuck!"

When I tried the reset option from windows recovery environement after booting it says "Unable to reset your PC a required drive partition is missing."

Because of these errors was I wanted to use the F9 option to restore it to factory settings from the recovery partition since Windows options don't work anymore or it doesnt see the partition.

cl-Albert
US Customer Loyalty Agent
keskeerik wrote:

"When you upgrade to Windows 8.1 through the Windows Store, you essentially get a brand new OS. Therefore, you can’t use your original Windows 8.0 install media to reset or refresh Windows 8.1 if you ever need to. Even if you have your original Windows 8 install media in the drive, you will get an error message when you attempt to refresh or reset your PC, asking you to provide the install media. However, you were never provided the install media and you are stuck!"


We may need to look into this more, but if everything goes according to plan, your Win8 recovery partition should still be intact and allow you to recover back to Win8 after you have updated to Win8.1 as far as I know.
Win RT customers who update to Win RT 8.1 will have their recovery partition upgraded and cannot 'reset'/recover back to Win RT, but that's not normally the case for Win8 and Win8.1 customers.

keskeerik wrote:

When I tried the reset option from windows recovery environement after booting it says "Unable to reset your PC a required drive partition is missing."


Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like your Win8.1 upgrade went according to plan and your Win8 recovery partition has been damaged or corrupted.

keskeerik wrote:

Because of these errors was I wanted to use the F9 option to restore it to factory settings from the recovery partition since Windows options don't work anymore or it doesnt see the partition.


The F9 option uses the same Windows 'reset'/recovery partition, so you shouldn't see a difference between the two.
If you still want to give it a try, tap 'F9' as soon as you power on the notebook or after you restart Win8.1.
Try practicing with 'F2' to get into the bios if you are not sure you are pressing the keys at the right time, but they both follow similar procedures.
It's a good idea to disable secure boot in the bios and enable launch CSM to make it easier to use the 'F2' and 'F9' keys.

Anyway, hopefully you can get better suggestions, or I'm wrong, but expect you will not be able to recover back to Win8 without more effort.
Not sure how well this will help, but you may want to consider trying to contact Microsoft or your local ASUS support for more suggestions.
Unless you can find someone (or a store?) with a UX32VD backtracker back-up that you can borrow, you may need to send back the notebook for repair to reinstall the recovery partition/Windows.

cl-Albert wrote:
We may need to look into this more,


"Step 5: Some Command Prompt Magic
Open the search charm and type “CMD.exe”. Do not press enter. Right-click on the first result you get below the search box and choose “Run as Administrator”.
Once a Command Prompt window opens, type the following commands:
reagentc.exe /setosimage /path C:\Win8 /target c:\Windows /Index 1
That is all you have to type. Press enter.
It should say:
Directory set to: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\hardisk0\partition2\Win8
REAGENTIC.EXE: Operation Successful.
C:\Windows\system32>
Please replace “Win8″ if you named that folder something else. Also, if your copy of Windows is installed on a different lettered drive, replace the letter c with the appropriate letter in ”C:\”."


This is the solution provided here http://www.windowsbleu.com/2013/10/how-to-get-back-resetrefresh-after.html

I was thinking maybe I could use just do the same thing as they do in Step five, with CMD but instead of setting the os image to the folder on C pointing it to my disk 0 partition 7 which is where my 20gb recovery partition ise located according to my CMD. Unfortunately I know very little of commands so I have no idea how to direct it to that location.




cl-Albert wrote:

If you still want to give it a try, tap 'F9' as soon as you power on the notebook or after you restart Win8.1.
Try practicing with 'F2' to get into the bios if you are not sure you are pressing the keys at the right time, but they both follow similar procedures.
It's a good idea to disable secure boot in the bios and enable launch CSM to make it easier to use the 'F2' and 'F9' keys.


I have no problem booting to Bios but as I mentioned in my first post for some reason there is no boot booster option in my Bios. Also F9 doesnt do anything, I have tried starting to tap it immideatly after boot, tappng in faster, tapping it more slowly, holding it down; still it bypasses the Asus logo that is on for a second or two and then starts loading windows.


cl-Albert wrote:
Unless you can find someone (or a store?) with a UX32VD backtracker back-up that you can borrow, you may need to send back the notebook for repair to reinstall the recovery partition/Windows.


Sending it to repair is possible, but the last time I did it when they switch my motherboard it took two weeks and I really need the laptop everyday for work.

cl-Albert
US Customer Loyalty Agent
keskeerik wrote:

I have no problem booting to Bios but as I mentioned in my first post for some reason there is no boot booster option in my Bios. Also F9 doesnt do anything, I have tried starting to tap it immideatly after boot, tappng in faster, tapping it more slowly, holding it down; still it bypasses the Asus logo that is on for a second or two and then starts loading windows.


Yes, it's really expected that 'F9' will not work if the recovery partition is not working either since it shouldn't really matter how you access it to use it. If you can get into the bios through 'F2', you should be following the correct procedure to use 'F9' if the recovery partition is working correctly (which it apparently is not in this case unfortunately).

Yes, if you want to work on it, you might be able to find another way to fix your recovery partition, but unfortunately, it's not something I am very familiar with.

Sorry I'm not able to offer more help with this, but good luck in finding a solution!

lachata11
Level 7
Start your computer and press the F9 key on your keyboard until you see a loading screen.
The restoration program prepares the files needed for the operation.
A message appears asking if you want to perform the operation. You will lose all files on your machine.
Confirm by clicking ?.
The restore process is done automatically, without any human intervention.
At the end of restoration, the machine will reboot on its own and make configurations.
A restart is performed again, and you find yourself on the setup process of Windows, same as the first boot after buying the compute. If the above does not work, then you'll need a fresh copy of the OS and start from scratch; or learn to live with it the way it is. See more at this article.

Hello,
I have the same issue as described in this thread.

When I try to launch the F9 recovery program and select to recover I get the message saying "Unable to reset your PC a required drive partition is missing."

I did try the Recovery option thru Settings - Change computer settings - Uppdate/recover - recover - remove all and re-install windows, but here I get message that my recovery media is not found.
As I run my windows in Swedish I guess my translation of the menu options is not 100% but I hope you can understand options selected.

When I look at the computermanagement I see the recovery partition and system say its ok.

Also a windows 8 upgraded to 8.1.

Is there any additional information on how to fix this today? Possible to get a working recovery immage from somewhere?

AtlasMinor
Level 8
keskeerik wrote:
Hi all,

I decided I wanted to use the Win 8 Refresh/Reset option to get my laptop to work as quickly as it did at first few months. These options didn't work and I read that they are most likely connected to the Win 8.1 upgrade. My UX32VD came with Win 8 preinstalled and I upgraded to 8.1 from Windows app store and everything went smoothly. Then I found out about the option to recover it to factory settings as described here http://support.asus.com/Troubleshooting/detail.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=G73Sw&os=&no=1775

But then the F9 method didn't do anything. It was mentioned in Asus website http://support.asus.com/FAQ/detail.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Eee%20PC%201000HA/Linux&p=20&s=1&os=&hashedid... that you have to disable boot booster so that the boot wouldn't skip the Asus logo splash screen for the F9 launch to recovery mode to work but there is no Boot Booster option in my Bios (the Bios version is the latest 214. My laptop went to Asus official repair in the past when my iSSD failed and they replaced the motherboard and after that the Asus loading screen was replaced with the windows loading screen when booting up. I have not changed any components from stock nor modified any partitions myself. Under disc management it still shows that I have the 20GB recovery partition. Here is a screenshot if that helps anything


I also used MiniTool partition wizard just to see if the recovery partition is allright and I can see that the files boot.wim and install.wim files are all there



Is there any solution to revert back to the factory settings? To disable the boot booster somehow or make it boot straight into the recovery partition? To make it active somehow? If I choose boot options when Bios loads then it only shows my HDD Windows boot manager and the 24gb SSD. Maybe the Asus original boot settings or MBR got corrupted somehow with the 8.1 upgrade? I also tried using the Asus recovery utlity that is supposed to launch directly to the recovery partition console but that launched me to the Windows recovery environement which as mentioned earlier didn't work.

Thanks to anyone with good ideas in advance, let me know if you need any other kind of info about the system


HI Welcome to the Non-Forums M8

I too had problems with getting the recovery partion to work, and even when i did get the F9 option to work .... It didnt install everything properly with Metro apps all having (X's) through them, with only a Control Panel installed.

I know, iknow, this sounds serious, it proberly waslol, i immediatly said. OK heres what to do. Ya i really screamed out load OK F* this time to go old school, not really but it works.

Immediatly hgo and Burn a Win8/10 (Not 8.1) 8.1 will cause you problems, Digital Media ISO Installation disk, dont worry about the Product key or anything, you WONT be installing,

From a Windows 8 OR windows-10 installation Disk, 1xDVD about 3.7 GB for either of them, chose Advanced Recovery Options.

Click Reset Factory Defaults , I prefer you use a Windows-10 installation disk, because when you finally get to windows 8 you will deffintly know it worked !

Hope this helps, Regard and 6 RMA's later... My2Cents

AtlasMinor.