disk wiped clean - won't allow me to recover

[iSlaker]

Hi, I installed Windows 8.1 Preview on my ARM tablet. before installing it I created a recovery USB drive as I thought I would hate Windows 8.1 and want to go back to 8.0.

So I did but before recovering I had the stupidest idea to wipe clean the disk.

there were 3 partitions in it before:
• recovery (around 300mb)
• EFI (I don't remember its size)
• C: (around 54, 55GB).

I can still get access to the blue screen with the big buttons. in Troubleshoot, "Reset your PC" won't work. it gives me a message saying "Unable to reset your PC. A required drive partition is missing"

I still have access to command line and could recreate the partitions but I don't know what would be the correct sizes and file systems for EFI and Recovery. and even if I did I have a feeling that just creating the partitions might not make much difference.

Any ideas, please?

VIDEO: http://youtu.be/KdDLy23CAGk

 

[jtg007]

You cant restore from your USB? In troubleshoot, "reset your PC" tries to reset it from the internal recovery partition, not an external one. There would be a different option for that.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

 

[iSlaker]

You cant restore from your USB? In troubleshoot, "reset your PC" tries to reset it from the internal recovery partition, not an external one. There would be a different option for that.

no, buddy... that's what I assumed it would happen before wiping the disk.
once I'm in I get the blue screen where I pick the keyboard layout then the second screen has two buttons "Troubleshoot" and "Turn off your PC". In "Troubleshoot" I have "Refresh your PC", "Reset your PC" and "Advanced Options". In "Advanced Options" I have "Automatic Repair" and "Command Prompt".

none of these options do anything even though I can see the recovery drive is being accessed.

 

[Myriachan]

If you have a full (~3 GB) recovery image on USB, boot your system from USB and it should be able to restore.

With the USB stick plugged in and the Surface off, hold the "volume down" button and press and release the power-on button. Hold down "volume down" until you see the Surface logo. It will take a while, since it's loading from USB. Once you get to *that* menu, do a reset. When it asks, make sure that you choose to repartition your drives. Don't do the full wipe option--that'll take forever. Just use the "delete my files" or whatever button.

You can know that it's the 8.0 recovery image rather than 8.1 because it will ask for your language before asking for your keyboard layout. (This is because RT 8.1 preview was only released in English. It'll likely change for final.)

 

[iSlaker]

If you have a full (~3 GB) recovery image on USB, boot your system from USB and it should be able to restore.

With the USB stick plugged in and the Surface off, hold the "volume down" button and press and release the power-on button. Hold down "volume down" until you see the Surface logo. It will take a while, since it's loading from USB. Once you get to *that* menu, do a reset. When it asks, make sure that you choose to repartition your drives. Don't do the full wipe option--that'll take forever. Just use the "delete my files" or whatever button.

You can know that it's the 8.0 recovery image rather than 8.1 because it will ask for your language before asking for your keyboard layout. (This is because RT 8.1 preview was only released in English. It'll likely change for final.)

yep... I tried that. check this video. it shows exactly what is going on.

http://youtu.be/KdDLy23CAGk

 

[windowsrtc]

try destroy your os partition first.rebuild or format it.

 

[iSlaker]

try destroy your os partition first.rebuild or format it.

the disk has been wiped clean. I have created the partitions manually. it didn't make any difference.

 

[mamaich]

Try this CMD script. Thanks go to a person in the original "windows RT unlocking" thread, he've uploaded his recovery taken from a developer-unlocked device. Unfortunately I don't remember his nick

rem These commands are used with DiskPart to
rem erase the drive and create five partitions
rem for a UEFI/GPT-based computer.
rem Adjust the partition sizes to fill the drive as necessary.
convert gpt
rem === 1. Windows RE tools partition ===========
create partition primary size=350
format quick fs=ntfs label="WinRE"
set id="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac"
assign letter="T"
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
rem === 2. System partition =====================
create partition efi size=200
rem *** NOTE: For 4KB-per-sector drives, change this value to 260
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"
assign letter="S"
rem === 3. Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition ===
create partition msr size=128
rem === 4. Windows partition ====================
rem ==    a. Create Windows partition ===========
create partition primary
rem ==    b. Create space for recovery image ====
shrink minimum=3600
rem ==    c. Prepare the Windows partition ======
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows"
assign letter="W"
rem === 5. Recovery image partition =============
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="Recovery Image"
set id="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac"
assign letter="R"
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
exit

You should create a CMD file (say, "CreatePartitions-UEFI.cmd"), put it into the root dir of your recovery USB and boot into the command-line mode. Then run it from CMD.
Of cause you can modify the script as you like - for example as you already have the pratitions created, you may need only to use "gpt attributes" commands.
And don't forget that the boot partition (the EFI partition that contains bootmgr.efi file) should be FAT32, not NTFS.

After the script finished - disk W: would be your Windows partition. You should try to extract the recovery WIM file there:

Dism /apply-image /imagefile:U:\sources\Install.Wim  /index:1 /ApplyDir:W:\

U: here is a drive letter of your recovery USB. I think that it should be D: or E:. You can determine it with the "list vol" command in diskpart.

S: is your EFI partition. You may need to copy the \EFI subdirectory from your recovery USB to S:\EFI dir and then use BCDEDIT tool to recreate boot entries. read technet or more info, for example here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh265131(v=ws.10).aspx

P.S. I have not tried this script myself - but it looks like being correct. For more info look here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825686.aspx and here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825221.aspx

 

[iSlaker]

Try this CMD script. Thanks go to a person in the original "windows RT unlocking" thread, he've uploaded his recovery taken from a developer-unlocked device. Unfortunately I don't remember his nick

fella... you are a star, an angel.
you saved me from sending the tablet to Czech Republic to do what took me 20 minutes.
I really, really, really appreciate it. the damn thing is working again.

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

[Myriachan]

Although not completely related to this thread...

I have trouble with restoring from USB on 8.1, though 8.0 works fine. When restored from USB instead of upgraded from 8.0, the OS goes into a mode where the desktop is always black and won't let you change it. This is due to Windows not having a valid product key.

I did some registry trickery to retrieve my 8.0 product key. =) Basically, I copied the Windows NT\CurrentVersion to my Windows 8 PC as a different name, then hacked an existing product key retrieval program to use that name. It seemed to work; it gave a key that my RT accepts.

 

[iSlaker]

Although not completely related to this thread...

I have trouble with restoring from USB on 8.1, though 8.0 works fine. When restored from USB instead of upgraded from 8.0, the OS goes into a mode where the desktop is always black and won't let you change it. This is due to Windows not having a valid product key.

I did some registry trickery to retrieve my 8.0 product key. =) Basically, I copied the Windows NT\CurrentVersion to my Windows 8 PC as a different name, then hacked an existing product key retrieval program to use that name. It seemed to work; it gave a key that my RT accepts.

I would just wipe clean the hard drive with diskpart.
the steps our friend posted worked for me but I ignored the parts it refers to a Windows RE Tools partition. also I used 4000 instead of 3600 for the Recovery Partition.
after the

Dism /apply-image /imagefile:U:\sources\Install.Wim  /index:1 /ApplyDir:W:\

step (which is lengthy as it rebuilds the entire windows partition) copy the boot files to the EFI partition from the newly rebuilt Windows partition with

bcdboot W:\Windows

and finally set the location of the Windows partition with

W:\Windows\System32\reagentc /setosimage /path R: /target W:\Windows /index 1

and you're done. don't bother with drive letters and visible drives as they'll sort themselves out when Windows launches for the first time.

 

[richdean77]

I am having the same exact issue after formatting my Samsung XE700T and then trying to restore my laptop with a recovery usb

Can someone please give me a hand with this process, I have tried the script but it isn't working, so I am wondering what I am doing wrong.

A more simple explanation for someone who isn't use to using CMD would be great

Thank you

 

[Yze]

I would just wipe clean the hard drive with diskpart.
the steps our friend posted worked for me but I ignored the parts it refers to a Windows RE Tools partition. also I used 4000 instead of 3600 for the Recovery Partition.
after the

Dism /apply-image /imagefile:U:\sources\Install.Wim  /index:1 /ApplyDir:W:\

step (which is lengthy as it rebuilds the entire windows partition) copy the boot files to the EFI partition from the newly rebuilt Windows partition with

bcdboot W:\Windows

and finally set the location of the Windows partition with

W:\Windows\System32\reagentc /setosimage /path R: /target W:\Windows /index 1

and you're done. don't bother with drive letters and visible drives as they'll sort themselves out when Windows launches for the first time.

hI! at the last step you mentioned with setting location of windows partition, i got this error:

"reagentc.exe the recovery image file cannot be placed in the root directory of a volume"

any ideas?

 

[Yze]

I would just wipe clean the hard drive with diskpart.
the steps our friend posted worked for me but I ignored the parts it refers to a Windows RE Tools partition. also I used 4000 instead of 3600 for the Recovery Partition.
after the

Dism /apply-image /imagefile:U:\sources\Install.Wim  /index:1 /ApplyDir:W:\

step (which is lengthy as it rebuilds the entire windows partition) copy the boot files to the EFI partition from the newly rebuilt Windows partition with

bcdboot W:\Windows

and finally set the location of the Windows partition with

W:\Windows\System32\reagentc /setosimage /path R: /target W:\Windows /index 1

and you're done. don't bother with drive letters and visible drives as they'll sort themselves out when Windows launches for the first time.

also, did you have to do anything with the S: efi partition?

 

[studio37]

hI! at the last step you mentioned with setting location of windows partition, i got this error:

"reagentc.exe the recovery image file cannot be placed in the root directory of a volume"

any ideas?

Same error ... no news ?

 

[studio37]

Same error ... no news ?

Ok, before the last command line I create new directory on R:
mkdir r:\osimage

and finally :
W:\Windows\System32\reagentc /setosimage /path R:\osimage /target W:\Windows /index 1

 

[chappatti]

Thanks to all on this thread...!!!

I was able to completely re-format and downgrade to Win RT 8.0.

Fantastic !!

 

[Kilemall]

Thanks to all on this thread...!!!

I was able to completely re-format and downgrade to Win RT 8.0.

Fantastic !!

How? Please write for me a full instruction how you downgrade it? Or video. Thanks!
P.S. sorry for my bad English.:highfive:

 

[janka25]

ayuda please

hola necesito ayudaa mi me sale ese error k se faata particion para poder recuperra mi tablet ..... me podrias poner paso por paso como lo hiciste soy novato en esto y me sale muy caro mandarlo a servicio tecnico gracias

 

[melongene]

Take a look at this link for info: eightforums.com/installation-setup/44021-need-help-reinstalling-windonws-8-usb-2.html#post368623