Windows 8 Asus R500A Laptop Windows 8 Recovery Woes

[Brandon Near]

The laptop is an Asus R500A with Windows 8 (not 8.1) that I just purchased from a guy on Kijiji. I got the thing home and did the recovery on it, all went as it should have and I was able to boot straight to the desktop where I went about performing the usual new Windows OS tasks; updates and software configs. Still all went fine. I did not update the laptop to Windows 8.1 on the OEM drive.

I decided to then remove the OEM and install an SSD drive and install windows 8.1 to it. All went as expected and the laptop booted normally but I noticed some drivers were missing. I went to bed and decided to attack that particular issue the following day. The following day I decided, rather than punishing myself with ASUS support and driver downloads, I'd just remove the SSD and reinstall the OEM drive so that I could transfer the required drivers from there. Well, I think I've screwed myself because here's where the wheels fell of my wagon!!

With the OEM drive reinstalled, I powered the laptop on only to realize that the laptop wasn't actually shut down before I swapped the drives from SSD to the OEM. I was now sitting at the lock screen of the SSD drive. Not thinking much of it, I rebooted the laptop and was then presented with the automatic repair process where I chose to Refresh your PC from troubleshooting which failed with a message of There was a problem refreshing your PC. No changes were made. I cancelled out of there and went back to troubleshooting and this time selected rest your PC, Only drive where windows is installed then chose to Just remove my files. The reset process began, got to 35% and returned with an error of; there was an error resetting your pc. System restore has no impact as there is no restore point and I have tried all the CMD tricks with Diskpart and reagentc to attempt to get the recovery/restore partition to be recognized and pointed to again but those things are not working either even though the processes were performed successfully.

I guess now what I need to know is whether or not there may be a way for to extract the OEM restore files from the hidden partition so that I may still launch a successful reinstall of Windows back to the same drive, I will also need to know if there is a way to recover the OEM install key, from the drive without being booted to the OEM drives OS in case I need it for the process. If need be, I can slave the OEM drive to another PC and do everything I am asking about, I just need to know the tricks if it is possible.

 

[Brandon Near]

Anyone can feel free to chime in with any ideas they may have, I promise not bash or belittle the comments!! As a matter of fact, I will likely only post replies to those comments that suggest something I've tried unsuccessfully and failed at but due to a correction from others yielded a result or I'll reply to those comments for things I've not yet tried and let everyone know how it went. I also promise to follow up when I have finally resolved my issue.

 

[ussnorway]

as you posted this in the wrong place... most people will ignore it.
1. yes the drive is fixable... acronis true image (prob other software as well) can read the info.
2. will any of the drives boot to desktop... or do you have a windows 8 install disc?

p.s. a windows 8 install disc iso can be downloaded (free) from microsoft if you have a working computer and internet.

 

[ussnorway]

Some extras;

1. You put the ssd in and installed 8.1… I assume from a disc and not as 8 which you then upgraded to 8.1:

a. The drivers that its missing are those ones you get from the Asus support webpage… the most important one is the chipset driver.

b. The ssd will NOT have a recovery section because it didn't come from Asus and Windows doesn't make one as part of the basic install.

2. I have a brother in-law with this model and can confirm from personal experience that it does support 8.1 however I would still use 8 because the laptop is designed for giving good sound and windows 8 supports more music based apps… it's your machine so have what makes you happy.


I recommend getting a good backup software and putting the first hdd back in to make a copy of the ome windows then;

Put the ssd in and wipe it before installing your windows 8.1 or 8 back onto it… after it boots to desktop and BEFORE grabbing any drivers from Microsoft or ASUS… make a new partition on the drive (10-20 g is plenty) and put the backup image here so that you can boot to it in the event that something goes wrong later.

 

[kemical]

Thread moved to correct section..

 

[Brandon Near]

All right, yes the SSD had Windows 8.1 installed from a download from the MS website, the key used to install 8.1 from the USB to the SSD was, I assume the key stored in the EFI as I was never asked for a Key and the OS displays that it is activated. Upon further discovery though, I did actually shut the laptop off before swapping disks back to the OEM drive so I'm not sure why it won't boot nor am I sure why it won't allow the recovery.

I contacted ASUS about this and they only suggest taking it to an authorized service center to have the disc and BIOS reset..... of course they'd say that!

I am going to look into the Acronis software and see what I can do as I would like to solve this if I decide to sell it. As per the Windows 8 vs 8.1, I really like the additional comfort 8.1 added back the OS, auto boot to desktop, half assed start button, expanded flexibility in Metro screen. As for the audio, I never even thought of that but, with my Phone, I noticed that upgrading to 8.1 from 8 did actually seem to have that very effect, so much so that I am again using my old school iPod classic to blast tunes in the car. Makes sense that the desktop/laptop OS would be the same.

 

[ussnorway]

I contacted ASUS about this and they only suggest taking it to an authorized service center to have the disc and BIOS reset..... of course they'd say that!

1. That’s actually strange advice… a bios flash is only done when there is no other option.

2. Watch the clip.



3. Your system is newer than the one he shows so you hit the [esc] key not the [delete] to enter the setup mode.

To be clear; if you bugger a bios flash your computer is Done!