Windows 8 Difference between reset and recovery?

[golden4207]

I see that there is 4 options:

1) System restore (I know what that is, won't help me)
2) There is refresh (I also know what this is, won't help)

3) Then there is RESET, which gives me 2 options: 1 of the options (none of this is verbatim, I am outside on my phone and forgot exact words as to describing the two different reset options) is to do a standard reset (as if I'm not selling the computer but still will restore to factory defaults etc), the 2nd is to do a full reset (as if I was wanting to sell the computer to somebody else to make sure my files are not on it, completely resetting my computer back to be as if I had just purchased it).

4) Then there is system recovery. Basically saying that it will do the same thing as a full reset, the second option reset, but with the option to save my files.

Now my question is, both the full reset and the recovery, APPEAR, as far as I can see, (besides the recovery saving files, which I already removed all files so don't care about) to do the same thing.... Which option out of the two, will completely restore my computer to the furthest extent that it can be restored to?

I hope that made sense,
thank you

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[golden4207]

Also I am in no way concerned about files being on my computer. This has nothing to do with files, it has to do with hardware driver problems. Blue screen error messages, system service corruption, system service exception, and on and on. I don't need advice as to what to do about these problems, it's under warranty and I've already spoken to HP, but they don't even seem to know the answer to the question that I posted above.

Thanks again

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[davidhk129]

A simplified answer............

Refresh ............ revert your operating system back to Factory Settings but at the same time retain your personal files and applications. You use this when you are having issues unable to resolve.

Reset................. revert your operating system back to factory settings and at the same time wipe out all your personal files and applications. The result will be like you have a computer fresh out of the box. This method is used if you wish to resell the computer or give it away but you don't want others to have access to your personal files. Of course you can use this method even if you plan to keep it. In fact I had my 6 years old Vista reseted to factory settings without any personal files and applications before I upgraded it to Win 8 Pro because I wanted to "start fresh" with my Win 8 Pro.
Note : there is just one option, not 2.

System Recovery.... this is to be used when the computer will not start. It has the same result as Reset.

 

[Saltgrass]

The term System Recovery, I have always thought of as referring to all the recovery/repair capabilities. But I am not looking at it and if it takes you to a System Image Recovery, that process will re-write the entire hard drive. It uses an image of the system as it was when the image was made. So if you used the backup utility to create a System Image, your computer would be restored to exactly that configuration. This doesn't sound like what you are wanting unless you had an image from an earlier time.

A Reset will restore the system using the image available from the factory for OEM systems. The image is the same one used to originally set up the system. There are two options for this operation, which are restore just the OS partition, or all partitions. The All Partitions option will erase and reconfigure all partitions so anything in those partitions will be lost, which is what you might want to do if you were selling the unit. I am not certain how this effects secondary drives, but I would be careful with those.

The OS Partition Only option only will re-write just the OS partition, which does contain all the drivers you seem to be concerned about. Hopefully those drivers were added later and not part of the factory install.

If you have an 8.1 system updated from 8, you options are somewhat limited. A Refresh will not even work unless you have the 8.1 install files, and a Reset may or may not function correctly.

You can remove all previous drivers for a device by using Device Manager to uninstall the device and choosing to remove all previous drivers at that time.

 

[golden4207]

David:

I have windows 8 and when I click reset, it does give me two different options. But regardless of that, I guess it's irrelevant because I need the one that wipes everything out, so I obviously am going to choose the second option that it gives me. I have actually done both a full reset and recovery to my computer in the last week, not solving my problem. I'm waiting on a phone call back from HP to fix and trying to troubleshoot what it is that's making me get this error message.

I guess the question I have for you is if they both do the same exact thing, system reset a full why does a full system reset take hours and hours to complete, whereas a system recovery only takes about 30 to 40 minutes? I don't know anything about computers so please talk to me as if I am a two year old.

Saltgrass, back to my commenting on knowing nothing about computers, I am completely confused with your message. Lol. I apologize, and thank you both for taking the time to respond to me.

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[davidhk129]

David:
I guess the question I have for you is if they both do the same exact thing, system reset a full why does a full system reset take hours and hours to complete, whereas a system recovery only takes about 30 to 40 minutes? I don't know anything about computers so please talk to me as if I am a two year old.

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I cannot truly answer your question because I never use Refresh nor Reset.

When I had my Win 8 Pro which I later upgraded to 8.1 Pro, I created a Repair disk for Win 8 Pro. I never had the misfortune to use it.
Then, I upgraded to 8.1 Pro.
I created a Recovery flash drive, and I have yet to use it.
I also, on a weekly basis, do a system image backup. What it does is to mirror the system at the time the backup is done. It is more or less like a system restore, in theory.
I had a mishap with my Win 8.1once, and I was not able to start the computer. I used System Image backup to recover.


What error message ? Want to fill us in ?

 

[badrobot]

You are right, Full reset and System Recovery are essentially the same. As Satlgrass mentioned, there are times when a computer is completely messed up and won't boot up. That's when you need to do a system recovery. You will need your DVD installer or recovery media to boot up and do repairs on your PC and it will require a lot of user intervention as opposed to full reset which basically do everything by itself with very minimal user intervention. But if your PC is only acting up but can still boot up to Windows, and if you say you don't know much about computers, Full Reset is the way to go if you want to start over from scratch. That is assuming that you already took care of your important files and data and have them backed up or you don't care about it at all.

30-40minutes? I don't really know about that. I never do a full reset or system recovery. Just like davidhk, I do image recovery which takes 15 to 30minutes with all the programs already pre-installed. I run all my 3 PCs on a cloned OS on SSDs. Sometimes when I run into problems, I just re-clone the original installation hard drive which is a clean install with my favorite programs already installed. Doing a full system recovery can take up to an entire day including resintallation of your drivers and favorite programs. Cloning takes between 15 and 30 mins just like image restoration. Now I may have got you confused. I have two system backups... image backups and a clean installs on separate hard drives. And you may say that takes a lot of hardrives, and it really does.

 

[golden4207]

I did a system reset last night after I did a system recovery sometime earlier yesterday. The recovery did not solve my problem so I decided to reset it also.

My system recovery took me 40 minutes, I did not need any CDs discs or anything like that, I just pressed the f11 key repeatedly while booting up and it took me to be blue screen with the options of resetting restoring refreshing, etc. After recovery, the error kept happening. Then I did a system reset last night while I slept because it took about 6 hours ( I know this because I've had to reset before because of a virus, and that's about how long it took).

The error problem that I'm having, and I'm waiting on a phone call from HP any second now, is the BSOD. The first one was systems service corruption, and would crash on me every 5 to 10 minutes. A big blue screen would pop up with a :-( face, saying "error, system service corruption". It said more but I don't remember what else. Then after I recovered and reset my computer it now does the same thing, but less often, and the only difference in the blue error screen, now instead of saying system service corruption, it says "system service exception".

I put a shortcut link to my event viewer on my desktop, & I always look and there's tons of warnings, errors, critical messages in my event log. I have no idea what the descriptions mean, its often different descriptions.

I just logged on to my computer about 5 minutes ago after my system reset was completed.

The only thing I have done to my computer since the reset last night is uninstall Norton AntiVirus and install Avast Antivirus (I like it better), & uninstall Norton. That is all, and I already have many error and warning logs in my event viewer. I guess I'm just waiting now for the blue screen of death pop up again and my computer to crash.

HP says they just wants to send me disks to completely uninstall everything and then reinstall everything, I just wish there was a way to get around this as I have test from college I need to take tomorrow, that is a timed test, and if it crashes in the middle of a test then my teacher is going to be annoyed because I've already had it do it once (BSOD) and had to ask her to reset the test for me. I'm in school for computer technology, because this kind of stuff drives me crazy. And not understanding any of it. Unfortunately it's my very first term at school and so I have not learned really anything yet, doing pre requisites like English and world religion lol. That's why I say to talk to me like I'm a two year old, because that is still the level of computer knowledge that I have at this moment.

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[golden4207]

I'm using windows 8 on a 2013 hp pavilion. So it's a relatively new computer I purchased only 5 months ago, this is all very frustrating.

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[badrobot]

Yeah you can also do a system recovery without disks if you can boot up. It will get the data from your recovery partition.But maybe even your recovery partition is corrupt. Not sure about that. If you need the computer badly while waiting for the discs, try booting up on "safe mode with network" for now just so you can use the PC. It may work that way temporarily. You did not make a USB recovery media? That's the first thing that you should have done when you first got your PC.

 

[golden4207]

I didn't need the recovery. All my files are saved on cloud Internet storage, and saved even again on my flash drives. I guess its a mental thing, but I don't like the idea of saving my stuff on a computer recovery, in case the whole computer just fails altogether suddenly, & I lose the recovery too. Maybe that's not what happens in real life, but like I said its a mental thing. All my files are very safe and I haven't lost anything. I just don't know what to do about this blue screen crash error system corruption exception thing. It's under warranty so I will just use my husband's tab until the disks arrive. Or do the safe mode with networking that you recommended

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[badrobot]

I am talking about the recovery media for repairing a PC not for recovering your files. You are absolutely right about storing data separate from your system. But don't rely too much on the cloud. Get your own external drive, too.
Cheers!