ASUS Vista Restore

Hi,

I have had my G2S for about 4 months now and want to revert my Vista back to factory settings. I only have the Restore DVD that came with the G2S. Will this actually restore Vista back to the fresh install I saw when I booted for the first time? I keep reading that this recovery DVD is terrible, but if it simply restores back to original install then I might go ahead and do it.

I use this notebook for work and don't have time to screw around with fresh Windows installs etc. It's also the only computer I have while traveling, so I don't have a back up in case something goes wrong.

Any additional advice?

Cheers!

 

What do you mean "terrible"? yes it will restore to factory defaults.

Check firstly my Windows XP guide, under "installing from recovery CDs". The procedure is the same for Vista.

Then check my Vista Optimization Guide on how to streamline your installation.

 

Thanks for the reply EBE. I just read it is terrible. I think they are just comparing to a clean install, but what would I know.

I'll check your links.

 

The restore DVD will take 2 hours to finish, if you still using the original hard drive then you can press F9 at the "frame" screen when you first turn on the computer, it'll use the hidden recovery partition to recover Windows back to original settings just like you first receive the computer and it only take 30 minutes.

 

I have an ASUS F3SA-A1 and went through the motions of setting it up, wrecking it with some dumb choices, and restoring via the provided DVD and driver CD. I do this to all of my computers within the first week so that I know I have all the software necessary to restore it in case of a real emergency. I could not successfully restore my computer with the supplied restore disks. Windows would not successfully boot; it stated that it was not correctly installed and would need to be re-installed. But when I used the F9 option, the restore took no time at all and was totally successful. In case of hard drive failure, I am going to be unable to restore my machine.

I think the whole process could be helped by ASUS 1) eliminating all bloatware -- just make those same apps available to the customer as an option, and 2) providing customers with a full Vista DVD and a driver disk.

I wonder if others have had success with the restore DVD. It seems odd that mine would not successfully restore Windows.

Jeremy

 

It sure could be helped... but it won't. I'm not even sure why they include so much apps written by themselves... usually bloatware is added because its owners pay the manufacturer. But here only a handful of tools are not written by ASUS.

Well... probably they believe it's 'useful' to the customers.

BTW check my Vista guide for optimizing your fresh install.

 

E.B.E.
I read your Vista guide -- and many of your other helpful posts. Thanks!

Do you think that my restore disks (not the hard drive recovery partition) should allow me to restore my notebook? I don't want to restore again just to confirm that the disks didn't allow me to restore. But it seems odd that the F9 solution is the only one that worked for me.

My notebook is configured exactly how I want it right now. Once SP1 is released, I'll install that and then move my programs and data to this new notebook. But I would have more peace of mind if my disks actually allowed me to complete one restore.

Jeremy

 

They should work.

I vaguely remember this problem mentioned before, but as always I don't remember the solution...

 

When I attempted to use my recovery disk it did not work and it made windows unable to boot, the solution ended up being to send it in to asus and they reinstalled for me. Which of course does not solve the problem if I have to do it again but as far as I know there is no other fix that I could find after extensive searching. I attempted the F9 method and that didn't work either.

 

so the restore dvd and the restore partition is the same thing?.. cos my A7Sv came with.. both.. and I was wondering..like.. whats up?..

first thing I did when I got my lappie was to insert the wonderful invention called a dos bootable 32gb USB memstick and use Symantec Ghost (the PROPER version not the driveimage consumerist version) and do a full backup straight to USB stick of all 3 partitions.. the hidden one at 7gb.. the VistaOS one and the Data one.... but.. I still dont see myself installing vista anytime soon...if I had known the DVD was the same thing I guess I could have saved myself the hour or so that took...

 

I already several times recovered vista from Recovery-DVD it takes about 2 hours. And a few weeks ago I formatted recovery partition (now I have new partition for archive ) and still no problems with system recovery my laptop - Z53S

 

OK. I tried to restore my ASUS F3SA-A1 using only the supplied DVD and CD disks and... this time it worked. Better still is the fact that the DVD and CD do not install a ton of bloatware. The only applications I uninstalled after the restore were Norton Internet Security, ASUS Live Update, and ASUS Screen Saver (whataver!). The DVD and CD combination did not install NERO for me -- I'll have to use the supplied OEM disk. And the trial version of MS Office 2007 was also missing, thankfully, so I'll install my fresh copy of MS Office 2003.

Not a bad option for the future... if it works every time...

Jeremy

 

There;s no reason for which it shouldn't work every time.

There is also a way to completely bypass default driver and bloatware installation using the recovery optical media. (see Tips and Tricks in my sig)

 

I think the reason why my first attempt to restore Vista using the DVD and CD only failed is because I must have interrupted the driver and bloatware installation sequence. I did not realize that the "DOS" window running at startup (after two restarts, I think) was installing drivers, Norton, etc. So when I interrupted it, it must have corrupted a fairly important driver installation.

Now that I am finished and am confident that the DVD and CD only restore works, I wonder how I can delete the retore partition. Is there a Windows-based tool to reclaim that space on my hard drive that you would recommend?

Jeremy

 

Before doing that, be aware that recovery from the partition takes one order of magnitude less time than from the optical media (minutes instead of hours).

Yes, those DOS prompts are actually jobs that have to run. They seem to be idle for long periods (they probably are, poor implementation) but they need to be left to complete.