[Masked Man]

Hi all. I'm having trouble creating recovery media for use if something goes wrong. I tried to use the standard windows recovery media creator, but I get the following message:

 

I think the problem may have been to do with the use of EaseUS partition manager. By default, my computer is set up with an OS © partition and a DATA (D) partition. This was not what I needed, so I used partition manager to shrink the DATA right down and add it all to the OS partition. But because of this it seems to have broken the link to the recovery and restore partitions. I still have both partitions available, so I want to know if there is some way I can burn recovery media from the two folders, without going through the windows media creator?

Thanks in advance for your help.

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Hi,

 

Can you post a screenshot showing the disk layout with all the partitions using the Windows Disk Manager or the Easeus partition Manager.

 

Please post the brand and exact model of the computer.

 

In machines from big manufactures like HP, Dell, etc. they usually include some tool to copy the Recovery Partition to an external drive, if this is the case make sure you read the instructions in detail because most of them will delete everything on the external drive or flash drive used to store the Recovery Image!

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

Can you post a screenshot showing the disk layout with all the partitions using the Windows Disk Manager or the Easeus partition Manager.

 

Please post the brand and exact model of the computer.

 

In machines from big manufactures like HP, Dell, etc. they usually include some tool to copy the Recovery Partition to an external drive, if this is the case make sure you read the instructions in detail because most of them will delete everything on the external drive or flash drive used to store the Recovery Image!

[Masked Man]

I can post the windows partition manager if that's preferable. The laptop is an ASUS K55V running windows 8.1, upgraded through the windows store from windows 8. The default tool for copying over the recovery partition is the windows media creator in the "Create a recovery drive" setting. It's not a problem that it will delete everything on the drive, the USB stick I'm looking to use I've purchased specifically for this purpose ("F: Recovery" on the above picture).

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

It seems the problem you are facing are very common in Asus machines after updating to Windows 8.1. The recovery need to be transferred to the flash drive before doing the upgrade.

 

Something to have in consideration, even if you successfully restore the machine it will be revert to Windows 8.

 

If the machine is working fine I would use Macrium Reflect free to create a full image backup of the OS to an external disk or flash drive. Doing a backup now will avoid all the hassle of the upgrade to Windows 8.1 + Windows Updates + install programs, etc.

[Ztruker]

You can also contact ASUS and order the recovery media.

[Masked Man]

Is there a reason to use Macrium rather than the standard disk image creator by windows? I've heard that ASUS don't send out recovery media, have you had any experience when they have?

[SleepyDude]

Is there a reason to use Macrium rather than the standard disk image creator by windows?

 

Yes it works much better. The Windows Image Creator can only create one Image on a external disk then you have to rename folders to create a new backup without overwriting the old one.

 

Macrium can create several backups with better compression, it can mount the backups easily to retrieve files, etc.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

I continued to read about this problem and found out that Asus created a tool Backtracker to do what you want, the tool and how to use it is available here.

 

The Backtracker should work even after doing the upgrade to Windows 8.1

[Masked Man]

That looks exactly what I need, thanks for your help. I've used the flash drive I had to back up my girlfriends recovery drive before she upgrades to 8.1 so I will have to wait until my new one gets delivered before I can try this out. I'll update when I get hold of it. I'll probably get a larger drive as well and create a system image anyway, as you say it will be easier than going through all the upgrades and updates if it is necessary.

 

Thanks again.