Restore DVD's from AI recovery

In case one reformats the system drive completely and erases the factory restore partition, including removing the partitions...

do the DVD's made with AI recovery restore the recovery partition and its contents?

Will the "F9" restore functionality work again?

I've never tried and would like to know before I wipe clean the system disk.

Thanks!

 

Anyone? I should have put something more interesting on the subject... ;-)

 

I dunno, I never cared about it since I prefer a fresh install.

 

well, I suppose that it's 99.999% possible that if one gets rid of the hidden partition, the only way to recover that "restore" functionality is to RMA... indeed that seems like an insufficient reason to RMA.

I know I sound like a noob, but I'm just new to gaming notebooks. I've been building my own desktops from scratch for years.

I guess I'll have to live with the "loss" of the magic F9, because I too prefer a fresh install.

I ordered my G73 while I was on holidays away from home, so I was lazy about a fresh install not having a good internet connection and all.. now it's been a long time I've got lots of stuff installed just right and laziness is still there ;-)

My G73 is still locking up despite applying MS hotfix and settig the frequencies...not very often, but when it happens I really hate pressing that power button down and loosing all my work/play.

I'll give it a week, if it keeps locking up... clean, clean, clean and I'll reclaim the hidden partition. That's what you did right? no trace of hidden partition?

 

If you made the restore DVDs with the ASUS software, those can restore the partitions too.
When you use it, it asks if you want to "restore only C or ALL partitions?".

 

I did make them. Great. I'll take a chance then.

thanks!

 

I started the process then just copied the ISO's to my server rather then spending hours burning them lol

 

Upon burning AI recovery discs, I inserted disc to start process. When the disc tray popped open for disc 2, I put it in and it said "no media detected- insert DVD" . I realized I had not put in DVD's but rather a CD for the first disc, although it finished that disc. I have put in DVD's to finish out the session. Now the questions: (drum roll please.....)

Is the first disc the OS, boot, source and boot mgr files and the other discs are just the mirroring of the system onto the discs? I don't understand why it didn't ask for DVD on the first disc? If disc one is the OS, then I should be able to do a OS re-install from that disc alone right?

I will eventually go out and buy Win 7 ult for this but $$ is tight at the moment and wanted a safeguard. Thanks in advance.


EDIT: ??? When I get to the 3rd disc(an hour into it at this point) it comes up with a message"An exception error occurred during the burning progress. DVD-3 needs to be burned again. Insert media". I mean damn, could ASUS really screw anything more up?(Yes) I have a brand new stack of DVD's and it burned the first 2 fine, and tried the next 20, so what gives? Anybody else have this happen?

 

BUMP** anybody?

 

I was never able to get the damn app to burn all 6 disks properly. What I did is I let the program create the 6 iso images, then let the app idle while I copied the 6 files to the 2nd hdd, and then quit the program, and burned the 6 images using ImgBurn.

 

Thanks Chastity. How did you let the program create the 6 iso images, then let the app idle while I copied the 6 files to the 2nd hdd? Like I said, after the 2nd DVD it wouldn't read the third and was just in endless loop.

 

You start the app, it will take awhile to make the 6 iso's, then it will start to ask for the 1st disk. While it's sitting there, you can find the 6 iso files and just copy them over.

 

Just in case, check the latest version of AI recovery (I think I saw an update listed in a recent post).

In my case it completed, but it did fail once at DVD 3. I put a new one in and it completed fine.

So disc 3 seems to be the troubl spot.

Anyone else?

 

After seeing how annoying it was to just backup the discs, I decided to go with a fresh install, and use Acronis to make images.

 

Used Macrium Reflect, made a full image and set that disk aside for safety. Just took a old 80gb sata I wasn't using. I got burned TWICE by built in restore imaging.

 

6 Discs????? I did the AI recovery creation and only created 3 DVDs maybe that is the difference? 6 CDs and 3 DVDs????

Just a little concerned that maybe AI recovery didn't finish for me???

Thanks for input..

In Peace and Agape,
Trav....

 

6 DVD+R iso images, yes

 

Like Homer Simpson once said, "DOH". Okay finally got back to completing this task last night. But this time I went straight to control panel and the backup section. I used the Windows 7 "Create system restore disc" creator and it worked flawlessly. Then I used the Windows 7 "create system image" but when the window came up to choose media it gave me the option to choose a hard drive to put it on. "DOH" (I happen to have an external HD)Oh yeah, much better than 6 freaking discs. This is what I actually did on my Gateway, but I guess I was being the lemming and following ASUS's method of madness(AI Recovery). Hope this helps some people out with another method.

 

UH OH.. So something happened with my AI recovery disc creation? As I only have 3 DVDs
ASRDVD_1, ASRDVD_2, and ASRDVD_3 - That's all that was created and I believe the IA Recovery App said that it was complete. I will re-start the recovery disc creation again and see if I run into the same problem.

I will update after re-creation... A bit concerned that I don't have a factory backup -

Edit:::
Just completed the AI Recovery Burner process and I burned "3" DVDs - Not 6 DVDs -
My G73 is the BestBuy version -
It started out with the message of needing 5 DVDs but then after the ISO creation it stated 3 DVDs -
I burned the 3 DVDs and at the end a message comes up stating
Successfully created the Recovery DVD
I have emailed AsusTek regarding this issue - if it is an issue - Not sure I want to test the DVDs for valid factory recovery though, as I've finally got all my stuff on my "baby" now and would rather not start over.. -

In Peace and Agape,
Trav...

 

Jeprira, did it work? The restore DVDs created the hidden recovery partition again?

 

I get this same error no matter what type of DVDs I use. It burns the first two disks fine and I can read them. The drive reads other disks just fine and I have made DVDs and CDs with it no problem so I don't think it's a problem with the drive. Every time I start to burn the third disk, I get that error. I don't see how it could happen but I am wondering if there is something wrong with my recovery partition. I did a system restore a few weeks back and then of course, I had to catch up on all the Windows updates after that. Soon after that I discovered that ALL of my previous restore points all the way back to when I bought the thing last October, were gone. Is the restore data kept on the recovery partition and that's why I can't make recovery disks now? I am thinking I will see if I can do Chastity's trick of letting it make the 6 iso files and then copying them myself. Is the first disk the only one with something besides an iso file on it, i.e. do the 2-6 disks have only iso files? I already have the first two disks made; a few sets of them actualy. So if I can do this, all I need to put on the other disks are the iso files... correct? And one more thing, if this all works correctly and I do the recovery, can I do just the C drive but also keep the recovery partition? Or maybe if I get the disks to burn properly, I wouldn't need it.