Having trouble factory-restoring Windows 8 on Asus notebook - won't recognise restore partition

TheVoice

TheVoice

TheVoice

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Right, looking for some pointers here because it's driving me nuts and wasting my weekend. I've got an Asus S200e, it came with Windows 8 and I've since installed the 8.1 update.

I'm now trying to set it back to factory condition as I'm selling it, but it's no co-operating. The 'Reset your PC' option fails with the error "Unable to reset your PC. A required drive partition is missing.", which is a like because I can see the restore and recovery partitions are both there and have data on them.

I've tried copying the .WIM file out of the restore partition to USB so I could the 'System Image Recovery' restore option on the recovery menu, but it doesn't see the disk image. I've also tried using Windows' own USB recovery drive creator which seems to have copied the contents of the restore drive to the USB drive, but again, it won't see the image is there. The 'Refresh your PC' option also fails with a "The drive where Windows is installed is locked." error.

Any ideas on what to do next? I just need to either get Windows to realise the restore partition isn't there, or find a way to restore the disk image manually. Presumably it's broken because it's a Windows 8 image but Windows 8.1 is installed, but I don't know. I can't see any reason for all of these options to be failing.

Thanks for any help folks.
 
Download a Windows 8.1 ISO an put it on a USB flash drive to do a clean Windows 8.1 install.

Like you say I believe the 8.1 update normally stuffs up the 8 recovery partition.
 
chaparral said:
Microsoft completely broke the windows 8 system reset options in there windows 8 to 8.1 update.....
Click to expand...

I know, it does seem that way. :( I have the .wim file though which is essentially the image of the Windows install when it comes out of the factory (with everything pre-installed), it just seems baffling that there's no easy way to use it.
 
Having same problems here.
Did one the other week on a friends that hadnt upgrade to 8.1 and went fine with new hard drive fitting. Made recovery pen through windows then fitted new drive and booted from pen and bingo windows8 installed.

Just tried it on two other laptops...both got slightly faulty hard drives that need replacing....and get the same message about a partition being missing.

Done a bit of looking via google and seems that its a very common problem after pc upgraded to windows 8.1

The pen i have for these two was made in 8.1 whereas the other in 8.0

M$ broke something i think :(

Did you get anywhere with yours?

Getting a windows 8 iso is an option but then what key to use for activation as even if the one is recovered from the bios its an oem key and the disk needs a retail key or so i read :(
 
Nope, I tried all sorts of things but in the end I just copied the Asus driver installer folder from the old install, did a clean Win8.1 install then ran the Asus installer which at least did all the hard work for me.

Unfortunately it was all for nothing, Yodel stole it. :(
 
My partner's Dell notebook was the same. Screwed up recovery partition meaning I couldn't fix the damage done by their crap Enduro drivers.

Ended up installing a cracked version, **** Dell.
 
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