Solved! Fix / repair Nova Button and One Key Recovery on Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro after SSD upgrade. Full walkthru!

I created this full walkthru for people who upgrade / or replace their hard drive / SSD drive on the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro or other Lenovo products that has the Nova button - One Key recovery solution. I did this on my Yoga 2 Pro. So it should work perfectly for those owners for others I'm not certain but it should be similar for other Lenovos.

It was removed off the Lenovo forum so it's must be too or technical or not permitted.

Essentially this rebuilds your laptop back to factory settings including full nova button functionality without having to buy the lenovo recovery disks. It took me several days to piece this together from everything on the web into an easy to follow step by step process so I hope you appreciate / enjoy it And I hope it saves you lots of time.

The process is not that hard but you are completely wiping your hard drive yourself. All your data will be gone. Bear this in mind. You have to be bold enough to try it. And it's not for the faint of heart.

Read through the whole thing first before doing it step by step.

Here we go

There are a lot of steps but it's a fairly simple process.

Requirements at least 2 USB sticks - One 4 GB or more

Necessary Files:

1. Okr8 Engineer - Wipes the hard drive and creates the necessary partitions to bring Lenovo drive back to initial state.

This is the file you really need.
Download here:

http://www.filedropper.com/win8okr80withoutos > my personal upload <
https://torrent.pl/de/0438900090510,lenovo-okr8-one-key-recovery-8 or do a search for OKR8.

2. Power Iso - Properly burns Okr8 on a bootable USB for installation purposes.
PowerISO - Create, Burn, Mount, Edit, Compress, Encrypt, Split, Extract ISO file, ISO/BIN converter, Virtual Drive

3. Download copy of Windows 8.1 OEM version - Wish I had found this link before!
Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help

For the Yoga Pro 2 you do not need the Windows 8.1 serial as it's imprinted directly onto the bio for others laptops laptops. Use produkey to find you're serail if you lost it you don't have a Bio embedded laptop: ProduKey - Recover lost product key (CD-Key) of Windows/MS-Office/SQL Server


4. Get Necessary Lenovo Drivers - Easily accessible on the Lenovo website. Just go and download the drivers you need for you laptop.

Links to hard to find drivers
Veriface 4.0 : https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Yoga-Flex-Laptops-and/Veriface-Download/td-p/1459391
Dolby v4 : Dolby Home Theater v4 for Windows 8 (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad S430 - Lenovo Support (US)


First section:

1. Download the OKR8 file. You'll need to install utorrent or bitorrent if you downloaded it as a torrent and not my personal file.

2. Download, Install, then Open PowerISO.

3. Select - Tools - Create Bootable USB drive - Select Yes to Run as administrator - Find the OKR 8.iso on your hard drive and burn to the USB stick.

4. Next create the windows 8.1 usb stick as well. Download Windows 8.1: Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help

5. Run the Microsoft file and select English > Windows 8.1 and > 64 bit

6. Burn the Windows 8.1 to USb through the software.

7. Relax and have a coffee while it creates the usb stick.

8. Download and save the necessary lenovo drivers onto another USB stick, external hard drive or onto one of the 2 USB sticks you are already using. Valuable if you only have one computer.

Please note: You install all this stuff at your own risk. Property back up and save all your old personal data first onto an external hard drive. This process will wipe everything off your drive, including all the partitions (including the old recovery partition if you have one there) and you'd won't be able to get it back.

Having access to two computers is helpful. But if done property you should be good with one. I will not be responsible for any mishaps. This is cowboy computing. Typically for people with too much time on their hands or who are obsessive compulsive types


Second section:

1. Turn off computer.

2. Press Nova button, wait, enter into Bios. Goto to boot mode and switch boot from UEFI only to 'legacy mode". This allows you to boot to the OKR 8 USB your prepared.

3. Shut down computer

4. Insert OKR 8 USB

5. Press Nova button again - Select Boot- Select - USB drive with OKR 8 on it.

6. Let the OKR 8 USB load. - A Windows 8 screen comes up.

7. Once it loads click the check mark and hit the button with Chinese letters. This whole software is in Chinese and not in English. Don't worry.

8. Wait patiently. It will say 'done' but it's not all done until the popup windows appears and says All Done. Then REMOVE the usb and reboot.

9. Important* - Reboot the computer and let the OKR 8 software load and install on the recovery partition - It finishes the installation after you reboot. It will reboot again and load into the One Key Recovery Panel software.

Yay! Now select shutdown from the One Key Recovery environment.

10. Press Nova button again > enter bio > and switch back to UEFI mode. *Important* If you try to install Windows through USB legacy mode. You will get a GPT error when trying to install windows onto the hard drive.

11. Shutdown again.

12. Insert the Windows 8.1 USB. Press the Nova button again. Select Boot Options: Boot from the Windows 8.1 USB.

13. Windows 8.1 loads. Select Install.

14. Choose Custom Install and Install Windows 8.1 to Parition 5 - "Windows8_OS"

15. Let Windows Install. Remove USB stick when asked.

16. Reboot. Go through standard windows setup. Install all drivers and program you want in preparation to save the intial factory recovery state.

16. Get your yoga 2 pro or laptop up to the initial specifications you want and then shut down.


Section 3:

1.. Now it's time to create the initial backup onto the hidden recovery partition so you can reset the laptop back to initial specs whenever you wish including when you want to sell or give away the laptop.

2. From a shutdown state - Goto system recovery through novo button again.

3. Once it's loaded press CTRL+Shift+O to pull up the command prompt window (Shift + F10 was previously suggested. It did not work for me, maybe on older machines)

4. At the command prompt type in: diskpart

5. type: list volume

6. look for the letter of volume that is labelled PBR_DRV (eg. H) - This is the hidden Lenovo recovery partition where the initial factory backup image will be saved to.

7. type exit

8. type: H: or whatever volume it is.

9. Your directory should change to H:

10. Type: cd onekey\osimage > This takes you to the correct directory.

11. You're almost at the end!

12. Type: osimage /nopbr

13. Type: osimage /fb

14. Wait ten minutes while the initial backup is saved onto the hidden recovery parition

15. Profit!

16. type exit - Reboot - You're Good to Go.

17. Rock On!

18. Enjoy Life again.

Lots of work but worth it in the end

This will probably also work with Windows 10 when it comes out.

Enjoy

 

SUPERB....
I've been searching about Y2P recovery image for 3 months. one of my partition was damage. so I cannot factory reset the windows. I still cannot find any Recovery Image for Y2P to download. BUT.... with this TUTORIAL I should be able to make a new one, am I right?

You are totally GENIUS. Thank you very much, I will try soon

 

Hi heronf,

I am facing a reset and refresh problems, as my system are unable to perform refresh or reset windows. any suggestion bro?

the nova button (OKR) works very well.

 

7. Once it loads click the check mark and hit the button with Chinese letters. This whole software is in Chinese and not in English. Don't worry.

8. Wait patiently. It will say 'done' but it's not all done until the popup windows appears and says All Done. Then REMOVE the usb and reboot.

9. Important* - Reboot the computer and let the OKR 8 software load and install on the recovery partition - It finishes the installation after you reboot. It will reboot again and load into the One Key Recovery Panel software.

Yay! Now select shutdown from the One Key Recovery environment.


Hi, I tried to this process for my Lenovo Ideapad 310, with 500GB +24GB SSD, I carefully followed every step, upto step 8, but my laptop failed to do step 9, no OKR 8 software load and installation of recovery partition. I checked with bootable windows, there was no restoration of factory defined partition, there was just one 500GB unallocated partition.

I also converted HDD to basic GTP partition using mini Partition tool 9 , its free (initially HDD was basic MBR, I converted to basic GTP unallocated, still no luck)

I feel it might be failing because 24GB SSD is being used by smart technology and may be OKR 8, is trying to create partitions on SSD which is locked by BIOS .

If there is any one who can help me over come this problem.

I was able to install windows without OKR 8, using Windows 8 DVD defining my own custom partitions. But I got problem with cache SSD drive. Intel Smart Accelartion was disabled, and windows kept prompting SSD failing drive. Very annoying,

I want to give another try and re-install win 8 with OKR 8.

 

@ Lenovo Ideapad U310/U410 Hybrid Drives

!!!Just an amendment, I found the solution. as I guessed in my earlier post Sandisk U100 24GS SSD was locked by BIOS smart technology. OKR 8 was unable to create factory partition structure because it was trying to create on 24GB SSD DISK 0 which is locked by BIOS. So I tried to explore OKR 8 rescue disk, inside the OKR 8 folder, there is a file called " create.ini " the very first line it says Disk 0, you need to change it if your OS HDD is Disk 1 or Disk 2, it can be on different port if you have more than one Drive in system ( in my case it was Disk 1)

Important!!!...If you installing Win OS in raid mode, you need to download and extract RAID controller driver in USB or add into installation disk (In my case it was Intel RAID drivers), or Windows will not see any Drives /partitions to install OS (Win8/7/xp) during windows installation setup.

RAID mode in BIOS is important if you want to use SSD as cache drive , your BIOS must be set to RAID mode and preferably UEFI mode for windows 8. Intel Rapid Storage does not support ACHI, though there is solution that you can change ACHI to raid mode even after installation, here is the link
Changing SATA Modes after Windows Installations
http://www.overclock.net/t/1227636/how-to-change-sata-modes-after-windows-installation
Rapid Storage Technology Setup
http://www.overclock.net/t/1227655/how-to-set-up-intel-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching

Other useful utilities I used was Rufus 2.01 USB creation tool, its an amazing tool, and you can choose MBR or GPT mode for burning ISO in NTFS for native/lagacy systems and FAT32 system for UEFI mode. (TIP: For Lagacy mode burn in MBR for BIOS in NTFS format... and for WIndows 8 ISO, burn GPT in FAT32 file system)
https://rufus.akeo.ie/ (Download at bottom of page)

Another good Free Partion Manager http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
And its Bootable Version http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

I also used POWER ISO trial versions an mentioned above in orginal post by @hernof, I created USB for lagacy mode from Tools -> Make bootable USB , it iwll allow you to select ISO image (make sure its USB-HDD mode) and worked good.

It will be wise to have at least 2 or 3 USBs, though I kept burning OKR 8, and Win8 ISO. I have Retail version DVD that I purchased when windows 8 was launched, but am sure you can find Windows 8 ISO online.

System Stable and Running..

I still failed to manage to use iRST technology. because to setup you need unallocated SSD drive, but on Lenovo Ideapad 310, SSD is locked by BIOS, it auto creates a 4GB partition (Equal to amount of RAM installed ) AND 18.2GB partition, and I was getting I/O error when tried to delete it because of BIOS lock on it. Therefore couldn't setup Intel Rapid Storage Technology, manually. I am believing BIOS is doing it internally the way SSD is preparation at BIOS startup.

Thats all from. Thanks for every one help . Dont hesitate to ask a question if you have any.

 

You're welcome everyone. I just got back on here and didn't realize this thread was live and helping people. Hope everything helped. I don't know how well it works on different Lenovo laptops. As the OKR seems to repartition for a 250 GB SSD HD.

** I also now just use Rufus. It's free. Be sure when you burn the OKR and OS to select GPT not MBR and fat32 if your computer support UEFI like the Y2pro does. And make the stick bootable.

But you guys seems to be figuring it out.

Ironically my hard drive just crashed so I'm having to do another fresh install myself. I'm loaded Windows 10 directly and this method worked great. GL

 

Thank you so much for putting all of the effort into this. I know these things can be pretty daunting. That said, I wonder what I would be missing by giving up all of this. So far I have:

1. Repartitioned so I can dual boot Linux Mint
2. Resized everything on the 1TB SSHD so I could migrate to a 1/2 TB SSD. (That was exciting! )
3. Wiped Win8.1 and installed Win10 preview to get rid of Superfish.

I know the drivers are available in one partition but I just downloaded what I wanted from the Lenovo site. (I downloaded the touchpad drivers from IIRC Synaptics so I could get a more functional driver.) I also skipped all of the bloat that Lenovo ships with the default install. Is there any reason at all for me to keep the recovery and driver partitions? I'd prefer to delete them and grow my Win10 partition into that space.

Thanks!

 

No reason to do ANY of this if you don't want to use the Lenvovo Nova button one key recovery feature.

You can just wipe the hard drive and do a standard install. This move is just for the fancy OCD types who like things perfectly factory for no reason.

Yes you'll save much more space with your approach and have more control of your hard drive. Then just download the minimum Lenvovo drivers from their site.

You can just use the refresh windows 10 in Windows if you ever want to reset your Windows OS. It's basically the same thing.

Or use
http://www.backup-utility.com/onekey-recovery.html

if you want to create a backup partition after you've installed Windows. Not sure how it works with a dual boot though but it's pretty good and free.

Hope that answers your question.

 

Hi Guys one bug I have just discovered when doing a of Windows 8 or 10. You have to change one of the default settings of the synaptics touch pad. You have to put the "Palm Check Thresold" to Max or just below. This was causing me problems for months.
If you use ever use an external display and keyboard, when you close the laptop, the mouse cursor can jump around erratically, this is because the displayed is pressing down on the touchpad and it is reacting to that. Right click on the touchpad icon in the taskbar --> then select clickpad settings -> Then select advanced --> and turn the palm check threshold up to max.
Lenovo turns it up at default but if you do the install yourself it will be set too low.
Happy computing.

 

Hello am new to the site I followed all your steps everything works great. My laptop is lenovo y510p.My question is how do I increase partition C size without damaging one key recovery partition. I tried using disk management to shrink D partition and extend C partition but extend option is not showing in the C partition. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

See post on changing the ini file on OKR8 to adjust partition size by Narendra below

 

Thank you for the reply I renamed the C partion and tried but extend volume still not showing in C partition so I recreated the D partition. I just tried to change partition value in okr.8 from 100000 to 400000 it worked now C drive have 390 gb storage.installing windows now hope it works.

 

I followed all your steps waiting for one key recovery complete the initial backup at the end its giving me runtime error r6002- floating point support not found.don't know what went wrong. Plz help.

Got it working there was corrupted Inetcache file after deleting those one key recovery is success. Thank you so much hernof for the post.

 

Excellent Narendra. Please post how you changed the values in OKR8 as well. I'd like to know for the future.

Also this is the link I previously followed to adjust the partitions. I followed what the last person did. I never had luck with using a third party solution, as I found it messed up the volume structure.

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo...-key-recovery-and-Partitions-Y2P/td-p/1569596

It worked with windows 10 anyways which is way better than 8 btw

 

Also Narendra if the runtime error r6002 is something that always happen when you adjust the default partion size in OKR8 please post how you fixed it too.

Great Job Everyone. This walthru is perfect for anyone who needs it for now or in the future

 

Mostly runtime error R6002 occur for many reasons. For me runtime error R6002 occurred while one key recovery was in C:/Users/narendra/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/ when tried to check the file I didn’t find anything so I just copied file directory and paste that on chrome . In chrome it showed [parent directory] and some sub folders in each folders there are some temp files (those are the reason for my runtime error) tried to delete them but couldn’t so I copied each sub folder directory and paste those on Internet Explorer there I was able access the sub folders then I deleted them .

For me folders are like this in chrome

1C5WNB6Q/

4/6/15, 12:10:51 PM

9GFFX58S/

4/6/15, 10:43:46 AM

TIF8KGGK/

4/6/15, 10:43:54 AM

VTY4FI0I/

4/6/15, 10:43:46 AM

 

To change partition in okr8 after creating bootable USB. In the drive there will be okr8 folder in that there will be a note pad document like create.ini open it there you have change the value in

create partition primary size=100000

format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows8_OS".

From 100000 to the size you want (eg. I changed 100000 to 400000) and save the document.

Also change the create.ini outside. It worked for me hope the info is helpful.

 

Thanks

 

Hi everyone,
I followed all the instructions given in this forum to install OKR 8 because my all partitions were broken and then I installed my original Windows 8 from my USB Recovery Drive on my Lenovo IdeaPad Z580. Now everything is working very fine. I have my Preinstalled Windows 8 Single Language and all the 9 Partitions and related Volumes on my system as given below:
Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Recovery 1000 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 System 260 MB 1001 MB
Partition 3 OEM 1001 MB 1261 MB
Partition 4 Reserved 128 MB 2262 MB
Partition 5 Primary 97 GB 2390 MB
Partition 6 Primary 170 GB 99 GB
Partition 7 Primary 150 GB 269 GB
Partition 8 Primary 25 GB 420 GB
Partition 9 Recovery 20 GB 445 GB
DISKPART> list vol
Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 E DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 C Windows8_OS NTFS Partition 97 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 2 D LENOVO NTFS Partition 170 GB Healthy
Volume 3 F LENOVO NTFS Partition 150 GB Healthy
Volume 4 G LENOVO NTFS Partition 25 GB Healthy
Volume 5 WINRE_DRV NTFS Partition 1000 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 6 SYSTEM FAT32 Partition 260 MB Healthy System
Volume 7 PBR_DRV NTFS Partition 20 GB Healthy Hidden

Though I created these 9 partitions by making required changes in the "Create.ini" given in the downloaded OKR 8 Engineering DVD files burned on a USB Drive. Now, I am able to use my OKR from Novo Button for recovery from initial backup. I am also able to copy my recovery partition to create a USB Recovery Drive.
But, there is still a PROBLEM - the WINRE_DRV and PBR_DRV are visible in "Optimize Drives" window. I tried all what I could to remove them from there but nothing worked anyway.
So, could anyone please help me here to solve this ? Thanks in advance.

 

No idea. It's sounds like you adjusted the ini file significantly. Only adjust the size of the one partition. That would be my suggestion. Always keep it as simple is possible.

Though always make sure you have no usb drives when you are checking the partition volumes as it shows those volumes too. Also this walkthru is for the Yoga 2 Pro specifically. It probably works on others as well but I have not idea. GL

 

Hi Narendra. I tried your approach and adjusted the partition size as you did but the OKR still defaulted to the original values. Can you tell me what you meant by Also change the create.ini outside? Was that another step.

Also could you post the create.ini file so I can see it?

thanks
heron

 

@heron - Hi i think you changed the create.ini which is outside ( i mean you can see a create.ini if you click bootable usb). If you just changed the value in that alone it wont change the partition size.you have to change partition value of create.ini inside ok8 subfolder. Sorry not able to upload create.ini doucument so i attached screen shot.

@ Bobjbd - because of multiple partition you created you adjusted some values in okr8 i suppose.but i dont know how to hide them. normally in okr8 only partition C value is given and can be changed,in partition D it will allocate the remaining space in the hard drive . If you want multiple partition then just create 2 partition at first and you can shrink partition D in disk management for you liking then there wont be a problem. Sorry if am not much helpful.

 

Hi heronf,
Thanks for your reply. You may be correct while saying that this walkthrough is for Yoga 2 Pro. Then, could you or someone else here suggest me a working link to download OKR 8 iso for my Z580?

 

Hi narendra,
Thanks for your reply. In the beginning, I tried to install OKR 8 with its original state without making any change, but even then there was the same problem.

 

Can you explain what kind of problems you had ? if i know something i will try to help .

I think there is no other okr8 iso available for specific laptop model. i have been searching for a long time finally found this forum its working for me my laptop model is Lenovo Y510p

 

Hi narendra,
In particular, I don't have any problem except that the WINRE_DRV and the PBR_DRV are visible in the "Optimize Drives" window which is just causing an unpleasant feeling of 'something is still wrong in the system'. I tried every thing possible to hide them there but all in vain.

 

I joined this site just to give you the kudos you deserve for putting this guide together. Thank you for all your efforts!

 

I try to download this, which give me a iso file about 830-ish GB. But somehow it said that the data is corrupted. Are you sure you upload the right file? Or my download is not complete?

Thanks before