Short version: how do I recover a Windows 8.1 System Image backup on to a *completely blank* hard drive (all partitions gone) on a laptop that came with Windows 8.0 stock?
I don't have any other PCs with which to create a Windows 8.1 recovery CD or USB drive. Can I create one from a Windows 7 PC? If so, how?
Long version:
Bought an Asus N550JV laptop that came stock with Windows 8.0 standard. Did a whole bunch of stuff setting it up for one of my coworkers, including paying for an upgrade to Windows 8.1 Professional so it can connect to our domain. When it was all done, I created a Windows System Image backup and stored it on my PC.
The N550JV started showing hardware problems - flickering LCD - so it was formatted using the 'restore to stock with secure erase' feature on Windows and it was exchanged with a new N550JV.
I figured at this point getting up and running again would be nice and easy - start up Windows, restore the system image, done.
So I get the new N550JV booted up into Advanced Boot Options or whatever it's called and go through the sequence to recover from an image. I connect it to the network, it finds the image I made, and I tell it to use that. It tells me I can't recover right now because it needs to format the drive that Recovery Mode is running from, so make a Recovery disc. OK, fair enough. I press 'OK' to make the disc and... nothing happens (it turns out later the app actually disappears behind the Recovery screen, if you use alt-tab you can get it to come back).
So I boot back in to Windows 8.0 and make a USB recovery flash drive and go through the whole thing again. It tells me AGAIN that it can't do it because it's booted from the drive it needs to format (wrong...). So this time I make a recovery DVD and boot from that, and do the whole sequence again. Now it works - it begins the recovery, and it formats my laptop's hard disk.
THEN it tells me the recovery image is incompatible with the recovery OS I am using and it needs to stop. So I figure, OK, I'll reboot in to Windows 8.0, upgrade to 8.1 (a lengthy procedure I wanted to avoid), and then do the recovery from 8.1... only my hard drive is now completely blank because it @#$%ing formatted it before it verified compatibility of the image!!
So now I have:
One Asus N550JV laptop with a 750 GB SATA drive with absolutely nothing on it.
One USB flash drive Windows 8.0 recovery environment - just the 'emergency tools', not the full 16 GB recovery image (it's only a 2 GB flash drive).
One DVD Windows 8.0 recovery environment (again, only tools, no OS image).
One Windows 7 Pro desktop PC with a Windows 8.1 system image stored on it.
How the hell do I get the Windows 8.1 image on my completely blank laptop?
Why can't I just download a Windows 8.1 recovery ISO from Microsoft and burn it from my Windows 7 PC?
I tried to download the Win 8.1 full ISO, but the Windows 8.1 CD key I have is only good as an upgrade, and the Windows 8 install program will not download the ISO with this key.
I can't download the Windows 8.0 full ISO to start from scratch either because as far as I can tell my ASUS laptop does not have a CD key printed anywhere on it. It's stored in the EFI or something? I'm not really sure.
Arggh!
Next time around I'm using Acronis to make an image and to hell with the Windows built-in imaging features.
I don't have any other PCs with which to create a Windows 8.1 recovery CD or USB drive. Can I create one from a Windows 7 PC? If so, how?
Long version:
Bought an Asus N550JV laptop that came stock with Windows 8.0 standard. Did a whole bunch of stuff setting it up for one of my coworkers, including paying for an upgrade to Windows 8.1 Professional so it can connect to our domain. When it was all done, I created a Windows System Image backup and stored it on my PC.
The N550JV started showing hardware problems - flickering LCD - so it was formatted using the 'restore to stock with secure erase' feature on Windows and it was exchanged with a new N550JV.
I figured at this point getting up and running again would be nice and easy - start up Windows, restore the system image, done.
So I get the new N550JV booted up into Advanced Boot Options or whatever it's called and go through the sequence to recover from an image. I connect it to the network, it finds the image I made, and I tell it to use that. It tells me I can't recover right now because it needs to format the drive that Recovery Mode is running from, so make a Recovery disc. OK, fair enough. I press 'OK' to make the disc and... nothing happens (it turns out later the app actually disappears behind the Recovery screen, if you use alt-tab you can get it to come back).
So I boot back in to Windows 8.0 and make a USB recovery flash drive and go through the whole thing again. It tells me AGAIN that it can't do it because it's booted from the drive it needs to format (wrong...). So this time I make a recovery DVD and boot from that, and do the whole sequence again. Now it works - it begins the recovery, and it formats my laptop's hard disk.
THEN it tells me the recovery image is incompatible with the recovery OS I am using and it needs to stop. So I figure, OK, I'll reboot in to Windows 8.0, upgrade to 8.1 (a lengthy procedure I wanted to avoid), and then do the recovery from 8.1... only my hard drive is now completely blank because it @#$%ing formatted it before it verified compatibility of the image!!
So now I have:
One Asus N550JV laptop with a 750 GB SATA drive with absolutely nothing on it.
One USB flash drive Windows 8.0 recovery environment - just the 'emergency tools', not the full 16 GB recovery image (it's only a 2 GB flash drive).
One DVD Windows 8.0 recovery environment (again, only tools, no OS image).
One Windows 7 Pro desktop PC with a Windows 8.1 system image stored on it.
How the hell do I get the Windows 8.1 image on my completely blank laptop?
Why can't I just download a Windows 8.1 recovery ISO from Microsoft and burn it from my Windows 7 PC?
I tried to download the Win 8.1 full ISO, but the Windows 8.1 CD key I have is only good as an upgrade, and the Windows 8 install program will not download the ISO with this key.
I can't download the Windows 8.0 full ISO to start from scratch either because as far as I can tell my ASUS laptop does not have a CD key printed anywhere on it. It's stored in the EFI or something? I'm not really sure.
Arggh!
Next time around I'm using Acronis to make an image and to hell with the Windows built-in imaging features.
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