Question about the MSI Recovery USB

Would that USB only restore the laptop to the factory partition / setup it originally came with or is it like the Alienware Respawn where after you make a few changes as in, resize the partitions and / or update some drivers, you can recreate the image with the updates you made so when you restore it next time it is back to what you have set it up?

 

Yes Recovery USB will only restore the factory image. It's not like alienwares way of doing things.

Sent from my SHIELD Tablet K1 using Tapatalk

 

Did you ever figure out how to download the usb somewhere. I accidentally deleted my factory partition when i was reinstalling windows.

 

no where to download it. I got a recovery USB stick with my laptop

 

Damn. I spent like a half hour with their customer service and they want to send me one out for $35 plus wait like 2 weeks. Guessing it's no way to find it anywhere huh?

 

You can find a local laptop the same as your model and use MSI BurnRecovery to create a 32GB USB 3.0 flash driver backup - a friends laptop or a brick and mortar store - you can buy the 32GB flash drive from them to help sell the idea

That's nice to hear that MSI will send one out now. Before they made us send in the whole laptop on RMA to reload the OS image. MSI wouldn't allow just sending in the drive to get reloaded.

$35 is cheap, and you get a "free" 32GB flash drive

 

Yea I've set up an RMA to send it in to them. But I don't want too. This shouldn't be such a hassle. They have the bios and vbios update on their page. I don't understand why not this

 

nope, the image of that is like 17.5GB I doubt anyone would have the time / interest to upload them. I certainly wouldn't.

 

I have been told in the past, by Asus, that they don't have permission from Microsoft to be distributing Windows in that form - outside including it with the laptop hardware.

Also MS wanted to crackdown on people putting OS images online for download. Back then it was rampant, many sites tried to get a Windows OS image hosted from them. Microsoft wanted control back on their turf.

 

when you do get your laptop back with the recovery partitions, make sure to create the recovery image on an external USB stick using the built in MSI Burn Recovery Tool

PS: I don't even use their crappy bloated image.....I clean installed the latest version of Windows 10.....

NBR Windows 10 Clean Installation Guide
Windows 10 Tweaks and Fixes (Index post #1)
MSI GT73VR 7RF TITAN PRO Drivers

 

I understand that. But it should be on their website where you download dragon center and all that. Guess I'll just buy the damn USB stick

 

Well that's what I'm using now. Just no recovery partition on my laptop anymore.

 

Yeah, that's actually an awesome alternative to being required to send in your whole laptop

 

just use Macrium Reflect.....

 

I agree with using Macrium Relect to backup your build as you tune it up, and going forward, but it's important to at least get that base image backup provided by using MSI BurnRecovery - everyone can do that - even if they won't go through the effort of implementing further backup procedures with something like Macrium Reflect.

I've run into too many people with stuff not working in their "clean" build, wanting a sanity check by loading the OEM out of the box OS image - and not being able to because they thoughtlessly blew away their OS / recovery partition before backing it up.

It's good to encourage using MSI BurnRecovery - and other vendors equivalent image recovery boot USB images, as a sanity check for future issues - especially with how much of a Clown Car Windows 10 has turned out to be

 

This is just a basic recovery im guessing. What would be the difference between using this and my windows 10 USB install stick?

 

Except I literally cannot find MSI burn recovery ANYWHERE and I've searched for the past day and a half for it.

 

Well, if you use the MSI Recovery, it would take you about 20-30 mins to restore

If you backup using Macrium Reflect, provided you have a 2nd SSD in your system and the backup image destination was that 2nd SSD, the restoration would take 1-2 mins

 

I just really like the fresh out the box feeling when I restore. I don't mind the bloat and stuff. When I restore I wanna feel like I just bought the computer. I don't think Macrium has MSI burn recovery partition :/

 

It came on your laptop... oh, yeah, right

The good news is you can use the USB boot flash recovery drive to install the entire OS image - be careful to only have 1 drive connected internally (externally too), as the installer will format and repartition everything it finds!

Once you have restored the MSI Out of the box recovery image to a drive and booted on it, that will have MSI BurnRecovery installed on it

 

Yeah I guess I just have to wait for the USB from MSI themselves. Wouldn't hurt to have obviously. And it's a laptop so everything is connected. Dominator Pro edition

 

then simple, have them restore back everything and burn the USB Recovery using the MSI Burn Recovery tool which WILL BE there once they restore everything back.

 

Actually, once you restore using the MSI USB flash recovery drive, and boot on it, you can install Macrium Reflect to then image that boot drive, creating an image file that can be used to restore to bare drive again - Macrium has a build boot recovery USB flash drive too.

What I do is to image my current boot drive, copying the image to an external USB 3.0 drive, and make the Macrium Bootable USB 3.0 (4GB?) flash drive, so I can restore any image to my "boot device".

It saves a lot of time to restore a fully updated and configured / tuned OS image using Macrium Reflect's recovery boot flash drive and a Macrium created image file, than restoring the OEM OS image and going through all those Windows Updates, installs and configuration all over again.

 

Pretty much what I'm thinking. Although having their USB would be pretty much the same since it would cost just as much to send my laptop in and god knows how long that will take before it's scanned in and worked on. I'll just take the USB

 

It'll be changed. I just wanna have it "fresh" again before I completely wreck it with configurations I should be staying away from

 

Yup, even after a long while I've used the original OS image to get a "fresh" start - I'll have done something too far back to have a backup to undo, so I have to go back to the original image to restart the configuration and tuning.

With MS dropping these Mega updates, really 10.1, 10.2, etc a couple of times a year, you'll likely want to go with a fresh update from the original OEM image a couple of times a year.

Or, a clean install from a current MS image may be the only way forward too... hence me avoiding the whole Windows 10 thing altogether - a huge waste of time.

You might consider getting Windows 8.1 / 7, and getting a stable OS moving forward, until Windows 10 gets there on it's own, without investing all your time helping them get there

 

True enough. I just wanna go back to how my baby was before some thing crashed the hell out of it.

 

did you know, that on the factory image, it has Norton Security preintalled, even if you use the Norton Uninstaller, the Norton installation files will still be there in the Program Data folder and there's no way you can delete it, I tried taking permission of that folder and it denies me access.

I'm a perfectionist and that folder bothered me so I clean installed.

 

I'm a long time Norton user, so it doesn't bother me, I use the Norton Uninstaller and install the latest from them anway, overwriting the Norton folder contents, but not removing the folder

I have removed the Norton folder(s) before though, so IDK why you couldn't.

If there is nothing running from there you should be able to delete it.

I've found .dll's loaded from folders before, rename them or their folder, find them listed in the registry and rename / remove them there, reboot and then delete the folder.

You can also login as Administrator and change ownership - adding yourself for all rights, and delete it that way too.

It can be a pain though when you are stuck with something like that, good training for getting over OCD too

 

I never saw norton on mine. Thankfully. Most annoying bloatware ever. But I'm gonna give macrium a try and hope for the best

 

I couldnt get macrum to install correctly..im trying to download again.. but what version should i try to get?

 

The free version, then after installing it, watch this video:

 

I got it installed. But when I go into the program after startup. It doesn't show image restore, its blank. So does that mean I need to have an image already or how?

 

yes it will be empty until you create your first image. make sure you only image the disk which contains windows and uncheck the other drives if you have other drives

 

How would I go about that you think would be best?

 

this page is already 4 pages long d00d, why don't I login to your laptop and show you how it's done in 3 minutes? PM sent

 

sounds good. much appreciated

 

I helped my friend ArmaniDiamonds and showed him to use backup/restore in Macrium Reflect. Now he is a pro!

MSI Gaming Team FTW!

 

Thanks so much brother. You have no idea how much headache you saved me.

 

I was trying to install Linux on a separate partition. It crashed and had to start windows fresh. Macrium is gone. Anyway to get it back with my backup. It's gone too

 

Do you mean your backup image was on the partitions you lost?

You need to always store your backup image on an external disk that isn't connected to the computer most of the time. Always protect your backed up data with an air-gap - to keep it from being destroyed in just such a catastrophe.

It's possible you can recover the partitions, and then copy the Macrium image off of the boot drive, but from now on keep those backup's on an separate drive off the computer.

@Phoenix can probably help you with a recovery tool for Windows 10.

If you still have the backup image - you didn't lose it when losing the partitions - and you are just speaking of how to restore the image, you can download a boot flash drive from Macrium Reflect's site.

You may need another Windows computer running to create the flash drive, but once you have you can boot on that flash drive and restore the backup image to the original boot drive.

 

Yea it's completely gone. I'm slowly redownloading all my apps. I had my laptop perfect when I did a back up. Running Icare data restore and hoping I can find it

 

For some reason when I click on the RESTORE option it doesnt show anything

 

Click browse for an image, and locate where you placed that image file, once it is loaded, click on the restore button which would then be on the top right, then choose copy selected partitions, then hit next, it should prompt you to reboot and start the restoration automatically

 

Well Im trying to figure out how to create a new restore image. Thats the issue since I crashed and partitioned my laptop..again

 

Macrium Reflect, period.

GL!