Emergency repair disks for Windows: Part 2

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	TOP STORY Emergency repair disks for Windows: Part 2
	By Fred Langa Part 1 of this two-part series told how to create a Windows repair disk that will boot a failing PC — and provides tools that might fix what ails it. Part 2 tells how to use a repair disk on all PCs — including those locked down with Win8’s Secure Boot — and also gives some advanced tips and tricks.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/top-story/emergency-repair-disks-for-windows-part-2 (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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Mr. Langa

I tried to test my boot DVD but ran into problems,
Following your instructions exactly….

“The best way to find out is also the simplest:

1)Shut down all software, exit Windows, and turn your PC completely off (i.e., a full power-off shutdown).
2)Place your boot/repair CD/DVD into your PC’s optical drive or plug the rescue drive into a USB socket.
3)Turn your PC on.”

I could not get my optical drive to open to insert the DVD!

What am I doing wrong? :confused::;):

Dave

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Mr. Langa

I tried to test my boot DVD but ran into problems,
Following your instructions exactly….

“The best way to find out is also the simplest:

1)Shut down all software, exit Windows, and turn your PC completely off (i.e., a full power-off shutdown).
2)Place your boot/repair CD/DVD into your PC’s optical drive or plug the rescue drive into a USB socket.
3)Turn your PC on.”

I could not get my optical drive to open to insert the DVD!

What am I doing wrong? :confused::;):

Dave

There’s no point in putting the disk in first before boot if your machine is not set to boot from CD/DVD first and as the full instructions say – when you first switch on you will momentarily be presented with the options to press (usually) F2 or F12.

F2 will take you into the BIOS where you can navigate to Boot to change the Boot order or tapping F12 as you switch on will give you a one off boot change where you would select the CD/DVD option, insert your disk then press Enter.

If your machine is already set to boot from CD/DVD first, if you look closely at the disk drawer you will see what looks like a pin hole.

Inserting something like a needle or straightened paperclip will mechanically open the drawer so that you can insert the disk before switching on, where you will be momentarily be presented with the option to Press any key to boot from CD/DVD.

If you miss this then the machine will boot normally.

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Put the disk in before you shutdown the computer. The second step is actually the first step–.

1)Place your boot/repair CD/DVD into your PC’s optical drive or plug the rescue drive into a USB socket.
2)Shut down all software, exit Windows, and turn your PC completely off (i.e., a full power-off shutdown).
3)Turn your PC on.

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“as the full instructions say – when you first switch on you will momentarily be presented with the options to press (usually) F2 or F12.”

….. or not! I have a Toshiba Satellite P755D laptop. It even has a HWSetup option to change the boot order. Except that it always boots from the hard disk. You can’t access the BIOS any way at all. Some internet research led to the discovery that this laptop was one of a family of models called “Legacy Free”. Oh what a marvelous way of telling you how you compare to pond scum. So, if the hard disk is broken enough to start the boot process but not enoiugh to bring up windows, you’re up the creek. You can’t also set up a dual boot system or boot something like the Network Security Toolkit. I have no idea what happens if you remove the hard disk entirely. That’s not something I consider routine maintenance. So, I can’t tell if the repair disk that I created will in fact even boot. One posting suggested that if you removed the hard disk, you could turn off the “Legacy Free” setting. I can’t vouch for that.

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”as the full instructions say – when you first switch on you will momentarily be presented with the options to press (usually) F2 or F12.”

….. or not! I have a Toshiba Satellite P755D laptop. It even has a HWSetup option to change the boot order. Except that it always boots from the hard disk. You can’t access the BIOS any way at all. Some internet research led to the discovery that this laptop was one of a family of models called “Legacy Free”. Oh what a marvelous way of telling you how you compare to pond scum. So, if the hard disk is broken enough to start the boot process but not enoiugh to bring up windows, you’re up the creek. You can’t also set up a dual boot system or boot something like the Network Security Toolkit. I have no idea what happens if you remove the hard disk entirely. That’s not something I consider routine maintenance. So, I can’t tell if the repair disk that I created will in fact even boot. One posting suggested that if you removed the hard disk, you could turn off the “Legacy Free” setting. I can’t vouch for that.

That’s definitely bad news and certainly won’t be getting one of those if I ever upgrade my Toshiba Satellite C660D and a Google for a review of any future models would seem prudent.

Have you asked Toshiba Support about this ?

Oh – and welcome to the forum 🙂

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”as the full instructions say – when you first switch on you will momentarily be presented with the options to press (usually) F2 or F12.”

….. or not! I have a Toshiba Satellite P755D laptop. It even has a HWSetup option to change the boot order. Except that it always boots from the hard disk. You can’t access the BIOS any way at all. Some internet research led to the discovery that this laptop was one of a family of models called “Legacy Free”. Oh what a marvelous way of telling you how you compare to pond scum. So, if the hard disk is broken enough to start the boot process but not enoiugh to bring up windows, you’re up the creek. You can’t also set up a dual boot system or boot something like the Network Security Toolkit. I have no idea what happens if you remove the hard disk entirely. That’s not something I consider routine maintenance. So, I can’t tell if the repair disk that I created will in fact even boot. One posting suggested that if you removed the hard disk, you could turn off the “Legacy Free” setting. I can’t vouch for that.

It is easier to start tapping the F12 key or whatever key you use to get to the boot menu as soon as you restart without waiting for any screen. Keep tapping until the boot menu appears or you hear a beep. That way you don’t wait for any screen to appear and you don’t miss the brief window. Today’s fast computers don’t allow much time to make the selection. Check with your computer maker for the correct key to access the boot menu. All computers have some way to start the rescue.

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I can also note that some Optical disc trays will open when the system is powered off (mechanical) and some require power. You can start the system up and usually almost immediately open the tray but be warned it may close again if the boot order checks it for a disk. And there may not be time to stick in a disk before the check.

Opening the tray before powering down is also possible but similarly some systems will automatically close the tray during shutdown.
But you can put the disk in, then shut down. Then start up.

As Sudo notes above, if that doesn’t boot the system, then you need to check BIOS settings. On My Sony laptop, its F11 during boot to change the boot device or F2 to open the BIOS.
The first is handy for occasional use when you don’t want to slow boot times normally.

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Fred describes a procedures to create a recovery drive that includes a custom recovery image created with the recimg program. I have followed the instructions, but when the option to “Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive” option is checked (it is already checked when I run the Recovery Media Creator) it can’t find any USB drives – Flash Drives or otherwise. If I uncheck this option it sees the available drives and works fine (but of course doesn’t copy the custom image). I’m not sure why this won’t work. I have created the image with recimg and copied it to my C: drive and renamed it as Fred describes.

(The other issue here is the size of my custom image – it is 60GB in size – so I am using a 500 GB usb disk drive and not a flash drive – my largest usb flash drive is 64 GB of which only 60 GB is usable – so that is sure not to work.)

Any suggestions? Any way to ask this question directly to Fred?

(I’m running Win8/64 (8.1 Update).)

David

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I am having the same exact problem as David. When trying to create a recovery drive per Fred’s instructions including copying the recovery partition, no external drives are recognized. If I uncheck the “Copy the recovery partition …” checkbox, the drives are recognized. I have tried this with several drives, including a brand new empty 2T external drive (so I know it is not an issue with the amount of available space on the external drive). I have seen other references to the issue in some MS forums as well. Most of the posters appear to be working with laptops of various brands. I have a Lenovo Idea Pad running Win 8.1 x64. I cannot find a solution anywhere. Sure would appreciate it if somebody could come up with an answer. My suspicion is that the fault lies in the actual MS utility to create the recovery drive.

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Well, after all the discussion, I went back to the laptop with a brand new Knoppix 7.3 disk. I rebooted the system and up popped the Knoppix prompt. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The ONLY thing that I did differently was to activate the built-in Administrator account. Perhaps running HWsetup as the REAL Administrator rather than as an ordinary user with Administrator rights makes the difference. In any case, I can now boot up from DVD and that’s all I care about. Or perhaps I am really insane and living in the Twilight Zone!!!

Thanks to everyone for the advice. It’s nice to know that people pay attention to the threads here.

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Well, after all the discussion, I went back to the laptop with a brand new Knoppix 7.3 disk. I rebooted the system and up popped the Knoppix prompt. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The ONLY thing that I did differently was to activate the built-in Administrator account. Perhaps running HWsetup as the REAL Administrator rather than as an ordinary user with Administrator rights makes the difference. In any case, I can now boot up from DVD and that’s all I care about. Or perhaps I am really insane and living in the Twilight Zone!!!

Thanks to everyone for the advice. It’s nice to know that people pay attention to the threads here.

You shouldn’t leave the hidden admin account active should your computer become infected.

Try right clicking on HWsetup then Run as administrator instead to see if that produces the same result.

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I’m a little confused about Fred’s procedure for creating a custom recovery disk. He doesn’t really explain the need for the elaborate steps involved to create another copy of the custom recovery image (which I’ve finally got round to creating on my six-month-old Gateway desktop).

I’d be curious to know why one can’t simply have the Recovery Media Creator point to the existing custom recovery image (renaming it to INSTALL.WIM, if that’s necessary, then simply re-registering it with the new name, using RECIMG as before) when using the “Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive” option.

Does the recovery image need to be in the directory C:Win8-Recovery for this to work? And why the use of the obscure (to me, anyway) REAGENTC command instead of just using RECIMG to re-register the image, as we were instructed on how to do when we created it?

Finally, Fred doesn’t say what we’re supposed to do now that we have two identical copies of a custom recovery image on our hard drive (that are taking up quite a lot of redundant space). Which one should we delete (I have the original custom recovery image on my D: partition, precisely so it doesn’t take up space — which is currently 12 GB — on my system partition)?

If we delete the copy, along with the C:Win8-Recovery directory, what tool do we use to de-register that copy and re-register the original custom recovery image, REAGENTC or RECIMG? Or does it matter? (Why are there two different tools that seemingly do the same thing?)

Just want to get this all clear in my head before I actually jump in and try to create a custom USB recovery disk (and make sure I’m not going through a bunch of extra, unnecessary steps).

Thanks to anyone who knows the answers.

--
PBear.SF

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Finally, the option to get a free 8.1 disc is nice but the “just need an email account” actually means “must have a Microsoft account”. It won’t let you use a non-Microsoft email address.

I also ran into this recently when Skype suddenly refused to use the Skype name as Username and would not accept the registered email address as a valid address either. But ironically I could reset the password to the non-Microsoft address. For some reason, it sorted itself out and started working later.

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I’ve just used my HWSetup to change the boot order by using the scroll arrow to move the HDD to below the ODD, clicked on the ODD to highlight then Apply – OK.

Opened the disk drive and stuck in a Win 7 bootable ISO then shutdown – closed the disk drive and switched on which briefly gave the splash screen before the prompt to Press any key to boot from CD/DVD.

If yours doesn’t do that then it must be faulty in some way and contacting Toshiba Support for advice or taking it back if still under warranty would be the way to go, as it should have some working means of recovery.

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I have not consulted Toshiba Support about this. Using HWSetup APPEARS to work when I change the boot order to ODD. It just won’t boot from the DVD (and I tried a few). I didn’t try using the Windows 7 DVD, since I am currently running Windows 7 and what I wanted to run was alternate systems like Knoppix and ultimately a System Rescue disk when my hard drive fails. So, perhaps I need to explore several avenues. And, there could be something wrong with the system itself. It’s out of warranty and it’s not my favorite laptop anyway. Sigh!!!

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I have not consulted Toshiba Support about this. Using HWSetup APPEARS to work when I change the boot order to ODD. It just won’t boot from the DVD (and I tried a few). I didn’t try using the Windows 7 DVD, since I am currently running Windows 7 and what I wanted to run was alternate systems like Knoppix and ultimately a System Rescue disk when my hard drive fails. So, perhaps I need to explore several avenues. And, there could be something wrong with the system itself. It’s out of warranty and it’s not my favorite laptop anyway. Sigh!!!

Just a thought, but have you created the Toshiba Media Recovery disks and checked to see if they will boot ?

As you’ll know, they are an external means for a factory reset should you lose the Repair your Computer bit in the Recovery Environment as I once did.

The Win 7 SP1 bootable ISO that I was checking with is a handy disk to create as you can perform an offboot sfc /scannow from an incorrupt source should a sfc scan from within Windows report that it could repair some files but not others and could negate the need for a repair/clean install or factory reset.

Your Win 7 DVD probably doesn’t have SP1 but you can download the relevant SP1 ISO from http://www.w7forums.com/threads/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads.12325/ and use http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool to create a bootable USB/DVD.

For info – to perform an offboot sfc /scannow after booting with the disk and navigating to the Recovery Environment to select Command Prompt – enter the command bcdedit |find “osdevice” then using whichever partition letter it gives, enter (assuming C: ) sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C: /offwindir=C:Windows

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I’m not a techie, so this is going to be “old hat” to many readers; but might help at least 1 other person.
I run Macrium Reflect (paid.) I had created a new rescue disk earlier this year, and tested that I could boot from it successfully.
Macrium had subsequently applied a few patches to Reflect as time passed.
Reading Fred’s 2 articles, just for grins I decided to test my rescue disk again.

It failed!

I have created a new rescue disk, and again it works like a charm.

The lesson for me is that anytime Macrium patches Reflect, I need to test my then current rescue disk to make sure it still works. Otherwise, it’s time to burn a new one (and test that one too.)

Dick

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Good point about Macrum or similar tools. But I would also note that a Backup recovery “rescue” disk is not the same thing a system rescue disk. Its still a really good idea to have a rescue disc for your OS. They have a different set of tools on disk. I also have an AV rescue disk and a general utilities rescue disk.

It’s great to have a hammer but sometimes you may need pliers.

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Good point about Macrum or similar tools. But I would also note that a Backup recovery “rescue” disk is not the same thing a system rescue disk. Its still a really good idea to have a rescue disc for your OS. They have a different set of tools on disk. I also have an AV rescue disk and a general utilities rescue disk.

It’s great to have a hammer but sometimes you may need pliers.

I was going to create a Norton rescue disk until I saw that it was only for a 32 bit version when mine is a 64 bit one – haven’t checked recently to see if they have produced a 64 bit one.

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I’m not a techie, so this is going to be “old hat” to many readers; but might help at least 1 other person.
I run Macrium Reflect (paid.) I had created a new rescue disk earlier this year, and tested that I could boot from it successfully.
Macrium had subsequently applied a few patches to Reflect as time passed.
Reading Fred’s 2 articles, just for grins I decided to test my rescue disk again.

It failed!

I have created a new rescue disk, and again it works like a charm.

The lesson for me is that anytime Macrium patches Reflect, I need to test my then current rescue disk to make sure it still works. Otherwise, it’s time to burn a new one (and test that one too.)

Dick

After getting program updates, Macrium Reflect usually warns me if it’s time to create new Rescue Disks. It isn’t always necessary, but frequently happens. Then I test the new Rescue Disks as soon as I create them. Being a Free user, I have the added inconvenience of having to do a 300MB plus download each time I create new Macrium Rscue Disks.

-- rc primak

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Not everyone may have known that who use Macrium and it’s a good post as a reminder to complacency.

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I’ve recently had two disk drives changed in this one as it wouldn’t boot from any bootable disks created on here and would only boot from one other created on another Toshiba laptop.

It will now boot with Win 7 ISOs but only gets so far before it freezes when booting with a Paragon Rescue disk.

When I restored it with a system image following a factory reset to eliminate it being a software problem, Windows told me that I would have to boot from my Repair disk to select the restore option that way, so I know there’s still something wrong but at least my Repair disk works 🙂

Prior to having the disk drives replaced, it would read one brand of disk but show another as having 4.08GB free when it contained the same as the one it could read but not boot from.

Perhaps you need another disk drive to get around the booting problem but it took two to get as far as I am.

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I do not have Windows 8, but to me Secure Boot is another reason to avoid it. The primary method of accessing the Settings or disabling Secure Boot would be unavailable in the circumstances where I have used the UBD4Win in the past, i.e. your computer is not in a state where you can get into Windows to change settings. I suppose that if you could override Secure Boot using a CD only it wouldn’t be very secure. If I am understanding the article correctly, the only way to avoid this problem is to disable Secure Boot permanently when Windows 8 is first installed. In any event, great and helpful article as usual.

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Sounded like an interesting thing to do, so I bought a Sandisk 64 gb flash drive. ( I checked and the requirement was for 32 gb.) I plugged the drive into my W8 machine and saw that the drive was detected as a fixed drive , not a removable drive. I was surprised, so I contacted Sandisk and was told the following: “In mid-2013 SanDisk changed production of Cruzer USB Drives to show up as fixed disk to meet a requirement for Windows 8 certification. At the end of 2013, SanDisk reverted back to producing Cruzer USB Drives as removable disk. There is no tool available to change SanDisk Cruzer USB Drives between fixed and removable disk configuration. SanDisk Cruzer USB Drives in removable disk configuration will be available again shortly in retail outlets.”
Will this procedure work with this type of a flash drive?

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I’m somewhat confused.

After creating a recovery flash drive for a Dell laptop running Windows 8.1.1, following Fred’s directions, the machine was shut down for some time, then successfully rebooted using F12.

But how can one be sure that if, at some future date, the laptop refuses to boot normally, F12 will be available to enable use of the recovery drive?

Perhaps it would be better to set the USB drive as the default, with the hard drive as the second option. This would probably mean a slightly slower start, but give greater safety.

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I’m somewhat confused.

After creating a recovery flash drive for a Dell laptop running Windows 8.1.1, following Fred’s directions, the machine was shut down for some time, then successfully rebooted using F12.

But how can one be sure that if, at some future date, the laptop refuses to boot normally, F12 will be available to enable use of the recovery drive?

Perhaps it would be better to set the USB drive as the default, with the hard drive as the second option. This would probably mean a slightly slower start, but give greater safety.

That’s why I have mine set to boot from CD/DVD – USB – HDD in Win 7 and it isn’t really noticeable in boot times and probably even less in Win 8.

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Perhaps running HWsetup as the REAL Administrator rather than as an ordinary user with Administrator rights makes the difference.

It does make a difference. You need full Admin Privileges to make some BIOS changes or to change the UEFI File.

-- rc primak

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