Download windows 8.1 system recovery disk. Methods of application in practice

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Windows 8 has a new system recovery feature - Refresh Your PC. It has two application scenarios, which I will talk about today. You'll also learn about the technology behind this exciting opportunity.

Along with updating your PC without deleting files (Refresh Your PC), Windows 8 has the ability to delete all data and reinstall Windows (Reset Your PC). It formats the system partition (and optionally all partitions) and installs the system completely, which is not very interesting. Her sister is more flexible and therefore much more attractive. One of its trump cards is the ability to create a rollback image yourself!

The Refresh Your PC feature and the recimg console utility are only available in Windows 8 and 8.1. These features are not present in Windows 10, but it does have an old backup from Windows 7.

Windows Recovery Tools Comparison Chart

Due to the variety of Windows recovery tools, I have prepared a comparison table. In it you will find a brief description of recovery methods and the mechanisms of their operation, as well as links to detailed articles about each of the means.

What is PC update without deleting files (Refresh Your PC)

The step-by-step instructions that you will find below are very primitive. It is much more important to understand how to use the new feature and what results it will lead to.

Methods of application in practice

Updating your PC without deleting files(and this is exactly the term they decided to use in the Russian OS) - this is a reinstallation of the system. It can be done using:

Installation disk. In this case, personal files are saved, as well as applications from the store (but that’s all!). After recovery, the OS itself will be clean.
Factory look. In this case, only personal files and store applications are saved. After restoration, the system itself will be the same as it was when you first turned on the PC.
WIM image created in advance by the recimg utility. In this case, the operating system and installed programs (but not their parameters!) are returned to the state at the time of creating this image.

If there is no image, Refresh Your PC is a convenient, but not the only solution for restoring Windows. Obviously, here Microsoft is focusing on maximum simplicity and high speed of reinstallation, as well as the low value of regular (“desktop”) programs for tablet users.

Difference between Refresh Your PC and reinstalling a system on top of an existing one

Typically, reinstalling Windows is resorted to when there are no backup copies. In this case, you can also reinstall the system on top of an already installed one, but... only if you can log into the system!

This is the benefit of the new Refresh Your PC feature, which accessible from the recovery environment(Windows RE). This means that you can bring the system back to life even if it does not boot.

Another advantage of recovery is full automation of the process. In other words, you don't have to go through the initial steps of installing the system first, and you don't have to configure OOBE settings (language, time zone, etc.) at the end.

Restoring Windows using an installation disc or factory image

Despite the simplicity of the recovery procedure, it contains a number of pitfalls, and at the very beginning. Let's first define the main rollback scenarios.

You purchased a PC with Windows 8.1. The manufacturer registered the factory image as the recovery image for Refresh, so the procedure effectively restores the factory settings. It doesn’t matter whether you launch a rollback from Windows or a special key combination before booting the system (see user manual) - all roads lead to Rome.

You purchased a PC with Windows 8 and then upgraded it to 8.1. The manufacturer registered the Windows 8 image, so there's a good chance a factory reset won't work, and there's not even a relatively easy way to restore it. To restore you will need a free Windows distribution.

You installed Windows 8 or 8.1 on your PC yourself. If you didn't create the image yourself, you will also need the OS distribution.

Now we can talk about everything that was acquired through back-breaking labor.

What data will be recovered

Based on my tests and data from the TechNet library, I have prepared for you comparison table. It compares recovery with and without its own image, as well as a detailed breakdown of system and user settings (note that in the Excel workbook three sheets).

Note that regardless of whether the image is present, most personal settings are lost, as well as all desktop application settings. I spoke separately about the reasons for this behavior of Refresh Your PC.

Starting recovery when the system can be logged in

The beauty of Refresh Your PC is that it requires minimal movement from you. Press Win + W and find Computer recovery(in English OS -), or press Win + R and execute systemreset.

Running recovery when login fails

If the system does not boot, you can get to the update mechanism from the recovery environment, where Windows 8 should automatically enter if it cannot boot into the system. If this doesn't happen:

Boot from
pre-created recovery disk
or
installation disk, select your language and click System Restore.
Click Diagnostics, then Restore.

That's all! At the end of the process, you will receive a working system, and a report about deleted programs will be saved on your desktop.

Lost programs can be quickly downloaded, because... for your convenience, their names are made with links leading to the developers’ website (if they provided links, of course).

In my experiment, recovery was generally successful. The only missing shortcuts were the Command Prompt and Run windows pinned to the taskbar and Start screen. I think this can be attributed to the preview version of Windows 8.

Restoring Windows using a pre-created image

The ability to create your own image and assign it as a mark for recovery is served as the most delicious part of the Refresh Your PC pie. The only difference from restoring without a pre-created image is that the Windows and Program Files folders are returned to their state at the time the backup image was created. Otherwise identical.

Creating an image using the recimg utility

Windows 8 includes a console utility recimg, thanks to which the image is created with one command:

Recimg /createimage D:\backup

here D:\backup is the folder where the file will be saved CustomRefresh.wim.

If the specified folder is not on the disk, the utility will create it itself. And if the wrong path is specified, the image must be searched in the System32 folder (I checked this in practice by accidentally putting a semicolon instead of a colon after the drive letter :)

The created image is automatically registered as a starting point for recovery, which is launched by the command you already know systemreset.

Starting a recovery from a pre-created image

Now you can rollback without an installation disk by logging into the Windows RE environment. But even if you boot from a disk or flash drive, the system is restored using the image you created, and not the standard one. I provided instructions for starting the recovery above.

How Refresh Your PC works

Saving data in shadow copies

After executing the image creation command, I immediately noticed the line “Creating snapshot”.

This suggested that the data included in the image was first stored in shadow copies. Process Monitor confirmed my assumption.

After which I could not resist and looked into the shadow copies. With one command you can list them and see the path to the shadow copy volume. And access from the file manager is already a matter of technology, thanks to symbolic links.

Vssadmin list shadows mklink /d c:\shadow \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy2\

Creating a WIM image

Shadow copies allow you to create an image running currently in the system, and this is a new feature in Windows 8.

In Windows 7 and Vista, a utility was used to capture a volume into a WIM image imagex, and the operation had to be performed when the system is not running (for example, from another installation or Windows PE). Now the main tool for working with images, DISM, has acquired the functions of creating and using WIM images.

DISM /Capture-Image/? DISM /Apply-Image/?

Obviously, recimg uses the same technology, but does not involve the DISM utility in the process, otherwise its log and Process Monitor would reflect this fact.

Image Contents

Having created the image, I did not fail to look into it:

DISM.exe /Mount-Wim /WimFile:D:\backup\CustomRefresh.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\mount

System folders and programs located on the system partition are present in full, which cannot be said about user data.

Of the user data, only the shared folder and the standard user profile are included in the image.

As a result, the WIM image itself is not suitable as a backup copy, for example, in the event of a disk failure. Obviously, it does not contain data or user settings. However, when you restore Windows 8 using Refresh Your PC, your data will not be lost!

Restoring Windows 8 in Windows PE

The recovery procedure is performed in the Windows PE environment, regardless of whether you launched Refresh Your PC from a running system or a recovery environment (Windows RE).

And this is where the already familiar mechanism of reinstalling the system comes into play, preserving the data and settings of the user environment. The sequence in brief is:

The contents of profiles and other folders are moved to a separate area on the disk.
A new system is being installed.
Your files are returned to their original locations

The difference from reinstalling on top is that the contents of the profiles are not restored entirely, which is why program parameters and personal settings are lost in particular.

If you have created your own image CustomRefresh.wim, it is used as the installation WIM image, and not the standard file install.wim from the distribution.

As in the case of reinstalling a system over an existing one, the old OS is stored in the Windows.old folder, which can be deleted.

As you can see, Refresh Your PC uses a combination of new DISM capabilities and time-tested data transfer technologies to restore Windows 8 using Refresh Your PC.

Scenarios for using the recimg utility

The utility itself is extremely easy to use, but it is important to understand what purposes it is intended for.

recimg command line options

Since the utility's built-in help is currently only available in English, I will briefly comment on the command line parameters:

/createimage– creates an image in the specified folder using shadow copies
/showcurrent– displays the path to the image that is used for recovery
/setcurrent– registers the folder where the image is stored as a starting point
/deregister– unregisters (allowing you to restore using the installation disk)

As you can see, you can create multiple images at different times and register any of them as a rollback point.

Differences between using recimg and imagex

The recimg utility is not a replacement for imagex, since it is designed exclusively for the Refresh Your PC function.

Launch environment. As I noted above, imagex can only capture an image if the system is not running. This can be done from Windows PE or another OS. In contrast, recimg is aimed at running on a busy system.
Dataset in an image. The imagex utility captures the entire volume, excluding some unnecessary files, or as per your list. recimg has a different task - only the system, programs and standard profile.
Generalization of the image. Typically, imagex is started after the image has been generalized using the sysprep utility. Using recimg does not imply such a scenario, and the resulting image is intended only for deployment on the system on which it was created.

Thus, the recimg utility does not make any adjustments to the creation of a customized system image for the purpose of deploying it to other PCs.

Discussion and poll

The introduction of Refresh Your PC in Windows 8 shows that Microsoft continues to improve and simplify Windows recovery mechanisms.

Now, even in the worst case scenario, when you can’t restore the boot, you can get a working system in no time.

In this case, all personal data will be safe and sound, and losses will be reduced only to ordinary programs that are easy to reinstall.

And for IT professionals and enthusiasts aware of the ability to create their own image, there is another tool for creating a rollback image, although it cannot be considered a backup tool.

In Windows 7, I create an image of the system partition on a weekly schedule. By the way, how do you create system images? Justify your choice in the comments!

If you would like to discuss Refresh Your PC and other Windows recovery mechanisms, Share your thoughts in the comments! If you'd like to speak on other Windows 8-related topics, comments on this post are still open.

In Windows 8, unlike previous versions of the OS, it is now possible to burn USB and CD/DVD disks, which will help to completely restore the working configuration of the system in the event of a serious failure and the impossibility of booting in the usual way. Booting from the created media allows you to use advanced OS startup options.

USB recovery drive for Windows 8

In previous versions of the OS, you could press F8 to select the startup mode, but in Windows 8 this option is no longer available, so creating a recovery disk for this system is a pressing issue.

This function is available in the “Recovery” window, which can be accessed in the following way:

Open the Charms Bar (the figure-of-eight side slide-out panel) and select the icon labeled “Options”;
In the system settings, launch the control panel, to display a complete list of its elements, select the view mode in the form of small icons and open the desired “Recovery” tab.

In this window, follow the link leading to the system utility that allows you to create a Windows 8 recovery disk. You can do it even easier if you activate the search function in the same Charms Bar and enter the desired query in the form that opens. In this case, you can start creating the disk immediately after the corresponding window opens in front of you.

Click “Next” and the program will search for devices that can be recorded. All you have to do is select the one you need, in our case it’s a flash drive, and click on the button confirming the selected action. This is how a flash drive is created with a boot image and system recovery tools.

Recovery CD/DVD

For Windows 8, unlike version 8.1, along with USB, it is possible to create an emergency CD/DVD disk. To do this, you also need to go to the recovery function of the control panel, open the link to launch the rescue disk creation utility and run the program. In the eighth version of the OS, the disk burning window will prompt you to create a CD/DVD disk instead of a USB one. If the user agrees with this action, then at the next stage the optical media selection window will open.

But you can get to this stage in Windows 8 in a shorter way if you use the Run window. For this:

press Win+R and write the command recdisc.exe in the input field;
A window will open in which you need to select the desired disk and let the system create a recovery disk.

After booting the computer from this disk, the recovery mode interface will open in front of the user, where in the additional parameters you can select one of the methods for resolving problems with starting the system.

Transferring the Recovery partition to a USB flash drive

You may notice that in the rescue disk creation window there is a small line asking you to copy the recovery partition from the device to our media. It will be active, i.e., you can check the box that allows the system to do this action only if you purchased the laptop or PC with Windows 8 pre-installed. This means that there is a hidden system recovery partition on the device’s hard drive.

After you have bought a new computer with the installed version or installed the operating system on your old computer, you must create a Windows 8 recovery disk. During an unexpected system failure (and in Windows 8, as in any other system, this can happen), Windows 8 system recovery will allow you to start your computer again and gain full access to programs. In this article, we will look at the process of creating a Windows 8 recovery disc.

In order to create a Windows 8 recovery disk, we need removable media. A CD/DVD-R(W) disc or an ordinary flash drive is perfect. First we need to find a utility to create a new system repair disk. Go to the Start screen and enter the keyword "recovery" in the search bar. The option we need will appear in the search results as “Create a recovery drive.” After the operating system has found the utility, click on it and wait a couple of seconds.

Windows 8 Recovery Program

In the Windows 8 operating system, the recovery utility is a wizard that has a desktop interface.

The dialog box tells you in English that you can use the utility to restore a Windows 8 disk even if the computer itself cannot turn on; By creating a new system recovery disk, the OS will try to copy important system data to removable media so that it can be used to start the computer in the future.

Click the "Next" button. After clicking, you will be taken to the next dialog box, where Windows 8 will prompt you to connect either a USB drive or select one of the available drives from the list. If it is more convenient for you to burn system files to an optical disk (CD-RW, recordable DVD), do not forget to click on the option "Create a system repair disk with a CD or DVD" ("Create a Windows 8 system repair disk on a CD or DVD") . An interesting nuance: the Windows 7 operating system only supports the ability to create a recovery disk via optical rewritable discs. In the new Windows 8, restoring the Windows 8 bootloader is possible even from a USB drive. This is the main thing, and what is important is a useful innovation in the continuation of the Windows family.

Once you have selected the drive, you need to click the "Next" button. The wizard will warn you, just in case, that during the formatting process all data from the selected disk will be deleted, so if you are completely unsure whether to select the previously selected disk, you still have the opportunity to cancel your actions. So, the disk is finally selected. Feel free to click the “Create” button. First, the wizard will prepare and format the disk (about 2-10 minutes, depending on the equipment installed on the computer). A little later, the utility will copy other utilities and system files that are necessary to successfully launch the recovery environment.

Do not turn off your computer while system files are being copied! If you have a laptop, we do not recommend using the utility to create a system recovery disk with a battery charge lower than 20%. The copying process itself does not have the same time period for all computers. It all depends on the RAM of your computer. Remember: during recovery, only system files are checked and restored. Installed programs and personal data are not affected by the recovery wizard. Therefore, if the operating system suddenly becomes damaged, Windows 8 boot repair will be applied only to system files, ignoring personal data (saved passwords, cache, browsing history in the browser, and so on).

That's all, the computer has written all important system data to removable media. Now, when the system suddenly refuses to start, you can easily start it by first inserting the media into your computer/laptop and calling up the recovery environment, which contains fast, useful tools.

The Windows 8 and 8.1 operating systems allow you to create a bootable recovery disk using standard tools. It is a regular USB flash drive that boots into the Windows recovery environment (that is, limited diagnostic mode), which allows you to repair startup, the file system, or fix other problems due to which the operating system will not boot or runs with noticeable problems.

A boot disk for Windows OS is useful because with its help you can run system recovery, update the system and reset your computer to its original working parameters.

It should be noted, however, that the disc or media cannot be used to install Windows. At the same time, the boot disk is very similar to the one used to restore Windows 7.

The recovery disk (USB version) or system recovery disk (for CD/DVD version, available only in Windows 8) is intended for those who do not have an official Windows 8/8.1 boot disk.

I strongly recommend that you create a disk or flash drive to restore the system before you get into an unpleasant situation - if you cannot start Windows 8 or 8.1, you can easily and playfully return the OS to a working state using the prepared kit.

Keep in mind that the 32-bit (x86) recovery disc can be used to repair the 32-bit version of Windows 8/8.1. Accordingly, the 64-bit (x64) edition of the recovery disk only works with 64-bit Windows 8/8.1.

The good news: you can repair any edition of Microsoft Windows 8/8.1 from this disk, as long as it is designed for the same hardware architecture (32-bit or 64-bit). One last note: do not try to use the Windows 8.1 recovery disk to resuscitate Windows 8 and vice versa!

Requirements for creating a Windows 8/8.1 boot disk or system recovery disk

First, make sure you have a blank CD/DVD (this is a requirement for Windows 8 environment only) or USB drive with a minimum size of 256 MB (megabytes) of the total disk space. Many OEM computers have highly customized recovery partitions—they can require up to 32 gigabytes of disk space on the recovery drive.

The CD or DVD disk in Windows 8 must be truly empty, because the program will not be able to write data to rewritable media. You can erase the contents of a CD or DVD by opening My Computer (Windows key + E), right-clicking on the CD/DVD drive logo in the list and selecting “Erase this disk”.

A USB drive can be a simple portable flash drive or a hard drive with a similar USB interface. Please note that this hard drive will be formatted and you will lose all files on it. Therefore, it would not be a bad idea to do backup of all important files! Be careful. If you delete valuable files, you will have to restore them (about resuscitating a flash drive to a website).

After creating the recovery disk, you need to make sure that your computer is able to boot normally. Some older USB flash drives do not support booting. Also be sure to check your computer's boot order in the BIOS to make sure booting from USB devices is enabled and listed before booting hard drives.

If your computer is equipped with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 interfaces or later, plug the recovery drive into the USB 2.0 port - this may solve some problems with booting the system.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive to restore Windows

To start creating a bootable disk, open the search settings using the Windows key + W and enter "Recovery" in the search box. Click on "Create a recovery disk".

As expected, the User Account Control window appears. Click "Yes" to make sure you know what you're doing.

The “Create a recovery disk” window will appear in front of you. First, check the box next to “Copy the contents of the recovery partition to disk.” Then connect the USB drive, wait about 10 seconds and click Next.

If you cannot enable the "Copy the contents of the recovery partition to the recovery drive" option when creating a recovery drive in Windows 8 or 8.1, you need to copy the Windows installer instll.wim to your hard drive or SSD drive. Please note that this will increase the default recovery disk space requirement from 256 megabytes to 4 gigabytes respectively.

If, when creating a Windows recovery disk, the message "We cannot create a recovery disk on this computer. Some required files are missing" appears, the winre.wim file or the system-reserved partition is missing.

Select the correct drive letter from the list, select the USB flash drive in the window. Then click the "Next" button.

Windows will warn you that all contents of the selected drive will be erased. To continue, click the Create button.

The process of formatting the drive and copying files may take several minutes, depending on the speed of your USB drive. Once the disc is ready, click the "Done" button.

Completing the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows 8

Now check that your device is actually capable of booting from the recovery disk: some older USB drives do not support booting. In this case, make a newer recovery disk on the flash drive and retest the drive for bootability. Now open the flash drive in any file manager and make sure that the content matches what you see in the screenshot below:

Creating an "old school" bootable CD/DVD for system recovery in Windows 8

If you want to create a bootable system recovery CD or DVD (this is only possible in Windows 8), search for Windows key settings+W, type "recovery" and click "File recovery in Windows 7" (yes, that's a thing) glitch, in fact the option has that name).

If you can't find the item you're looking for, open a command prompt window (use Windows keys+X), type sdclt.exe and press Enter to run the program.

On the left side of the Microsoft Windows 7 File Recovery window, click the “Create a system repair disc” button.

The “Create a system repair disc” window will open. Select the desired successor and click the "Create Disk" button.

If you insert a non-blank CD or DVD, you will see an error dialog like this: "The system repair disc was not created, there is no media in the device (0xC0AA0202)." Click OK, insert a blank disc and the burning process will start automatically.

Right-click on your CD or DVD drive and select the "Erase this drive" option.

It may take several minutes to create a system repair disc. After the process is complete, specify the name of the disk and click the “Close” button.

Summary. I hope that these instructions helped you create a bootable USB flash drive to restore Microsoft Windows 8. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments, I will definitely answer them (see below).

Answers to readers' questions

After restoring Windows 8, files and some programs disappeared. How to return/restore them?

Answer. You must understand that restoring Windows 8 from a disk or other media assumes that all installed programs will be removed and will need to be reinstalled. However, if you installed Windows on a different drive, you can go to the user folder (Users - [username]) on the system drive used by the previous OS. In the Application Data subdirectory, look for user files with application configuration files; they can be copied to the user’s current folder. But the actual Windows applications will need to be installed from installation files.

If you installed Windows 8 on the default system drive and overwritten the old version of the OS, look for the Windows.old folder. It stores copies of previously installed programs.

The laptop crashed after uninstalling Windows 8. There was no archiving before either. And now, having returned some things, I can’t find some files: the office program, my notes, etc. The update center does not work. It is impossible to find deleted files, the default is everywhere. How to restore windows 8 to normal like before?

Answer. It looks like you used a restore point a few days ago. However, the question is formulated in such a way that it is not clear what you wanted to ask. Let's try to answer point by point.

1. The easiest way to install an office suite is by downloading the installation package on the developer’s website.

2. Windows Update 8 operation Depends on the Windows Update service. Start - Run - services.msc. Find the specified service, switch to the “Automatic” state, and reboot the system.

3. To recover deleted files, use specialized programs, we have written about them many times.

If I restore the system via a USB flash drive (on Windows 8), will the system be restored to factory settings or to the time the recovery disk was created?

Answer. Burning Windows 8 to a USB flash drive is just a convenient reinstallation option without using a disk drive.

You can write Windows 8 onto a USB flash drive and reinstall it from scratch, but you will need to configure, install programs, etc. again. If you use Windows restore points, you return to the state in which the OS was fixed at the time this point was created.

Windows 8 system recovery may be required if critical errors occur in your PC. To prevent the user from having to completely reinstall the OS, special tools are provided that allow you to restore your computer even without deleting files or changing general system settings. In this article you will learn how to start restoring a computer or laptop on Win 8 in different ways.

Below we consider two scenarios: with a working operating system and with a faulty one. In the first case, you can perform recovery from the Windows 8 interface without a disk or flash drive, and in the second, you will need bootable media to copy system files. All methods are presented below:

rollback from a restore point;
using Refresh your PC;
reset to factory settings on laptop;
recovery using a boot disk or flash drive.

Let's consider each of the methods in detail. All instructions are fully working and suitable for any build of Windows 8 32/64 Bit.

System restore point

This method allows you to roll back the OS to a certain state. You must do the following:

Open File Explorer using the icon on the taskbar.

In the left directory, find the “This PC” item and right-click on it to select “Properties” from the menu.

In the window that opens, click on the “System Protection” button.

In the selected tab, click on the “Restore” button.

On the first screen, click on “Next”.

From the list, select a checkpoint according to the date when the computer was stable and working. Click "Next".

To start the procedure, click the “Finish” button.

Now you know how to use a checkpoint to rollback the state of the OS.

Creating a checkpoint

If you don't have checkpoints created automatically, you can do it manually. This option will be useful if problems arise with the OS in the future:

Open the Properties window again and click on System Protection.

Next, click on the “Create” button marked in the screenshot.

Enter a name and click "Create".

Wait until the procedure is completed. After it, the current OS configuration will be saved as a checkpoint. You can easily restore this state if Windows 8 malfunctions using the instructions described above.

Rollback via Options

Windows 8 debuted the Refresh Your PC tool. With its help, the user can roll back the OS state to the required state. You can save applications and settings, return your PC to factory settings, completely reinstall the system, or launch a safe environment and perform the necessary actions through it.

First you need to open “Computer Settings”:

Right-click on the Start icon and select Find.

In the search bar, enter the query “PC settings” and open the corresponding application.

In the list of sections, select "Update and Recovery".

Go to the “Recovery” subsection. Here are tools that allow you to return the OS to its original state or start safe mode.

The first option (1) allows you to restore Windows 8 to factory settings without losing personal files, music, photos, etc. Using the second item (2), you can call up a menu to completely reinstall the OS and return it to the factory preset settings. This will delete all personal files and installed applications. By clicking on the button in the third paragraph (3), you can call up the safe environment and continue settings through it. The first two options allow you to roll back the system from the Windows 8 interface.

It’s worth taking a closer look at the safe environment, as advanced functionality awaits you there.

Click on the “Restart now” button and wait - on the screen you will see a menu launch with a choice of action. Click on "Diagnostics".

As you can see, here you can perform all the same operations as in the Windows 8 interface. However, the diagnostic menu can come in handy if the OS does not boot. Click on the “Advanced options” button to access advanced functionality. With it you can:

roll back the OS to a checkpoint;
use wim image for recovery;
roll back the system via the command line.

Let's consider all the possibilities in more detail. We dealt with the first point above - the procedure is no different from running it in Windows 8.

By clicking on “Restore system image”, you launch a program to automatically unpack a pre-created wim archive. It should contain the entire OS with personal settings and programs. You can connect a disk or flash drive to your computer to unpack a third-party wim image. This way you will get a complete system.

"Command Prompt" allows you to start the rollback procedure using simple commands. Click on the appropriate button to launch the application. Now enter the command “rstrui.exe” and press Enter to run. After this, you will have access to the PC recovery menu via checkpoint.

You can launch this menu through bootable media if the installed OS does not work correctly and does not start. Let's consider this situation.

Performing the procedure using a flash drive

Performing the procedure this way will require some preparation. First, you need to create bootable media. To do this, you need to visit the official Microsoft website, where the Windows 8 web installer is located and download it to another computer. The bootloader will download the OS files and create a boot drive automatically.

Secondly, you need to make settings through the BIOS. To do this, when starting the PC, press the button responsible for entering the BIOS menu (it is indicated on the initial computer startup screen). Go to the "Boot" menu and set the bootable USB flash drive to first place in boot priority. To save the settings, press F10 and restart your PC again.

Now when you turn it on you will see the installer menu. Here you will find the option to uninstall, reinstall the system, format the hard drive. The creators also included the recovery function in a separate menu:

Select the desired item and start the procedure.

Rollback on a laptop with a pre-installed operating system

Laptop manufacturers that sell devices with pre-installed software provide the ability to rollback using proprietary utilities and tools. Part of the hard drive space is allocated for recovery, so you can start the process of returning your PC to its original settings in a couple of steps.

This applies to laptops from Asus, Lenovo, Acer, HP and many others. Let's look at the procedure using the Acer Iconia tab w5100 as an example. By default, this company uses the keyboard shortcut Alt + F10, which must be pressed on the initial boot screen with the Acer logo.

You will see the "Acer eRecovery Management" menu. Select the marked item.

After this, wait until the procedure is completed. During the process, the laptop may reboot several times. The only way to cancel the recovery process is to restart the PC. After the rollback is complete, you will receive the device with factory settings.

The names of the utilities and how to access them differ depending on the laptop manufacturer, but using this example you can easily restore Windows 8 on any device.

Conclusion

Using the methods described, you can return Windows 8 to its working or original state in almost any situation. Use checkpoints to restore your computer to its previous state. The Refresh Your PC functionality is useful when restoring your PC to factory settings. A safe environment is useful if Windows 8 does not start - the necessary tools can be opened via a bootable USB flash drive.

Video

Below you can watch a training video that clearly shows all the steps from this article. Together with the video instructions, you will be able to figure out the difficulties and restore your computer without outside help.