Can't Reload G50V from Recovery Partition

[peezle]

Can't reload G50V from Recovery Partition
Someone donated a G50V laptop to our church. Apparently it came factory loaded with Vista 64. The previous owner upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate at some point. He doesn't remember how he did it and doesn't have any CDs that contain the upgraded OS. Of the ASUS CDs that came with laptop, there isn't a recovery CD.

We are having issues with the laptop that suggest that the OS is corrupted and needs to be reloaded (several applications freeze or crash, all applications have been uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times). I had hoped to be able to use the recovery partition to reload the machine, but when I use the F9 key at startup, I only get the Windows Boot Manager that allows me the option to boot using Windows 7 or press F8 for advanced options. When I view Disk 0 using the Computer Management panel, I see that the recovery partition (RECOVERY E:, almost 12GB, FAT32) is there and the rest of the disk (Vista64 C:, 286GB, NTSF) holds the OS.

I've read from other forums that the recovery partition could be corrupted. What are my options at this point for reloading this machine? I have the ability to wipe the machine out and install XP. but I'd like to keep Windows 7 if at all possible. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[cl-Albert]

Noticed that you said you would like to keep Win7 on the notebook if possible and just wanted to remind you if you get the recovery partition working, it will erase your Win7, so just make sure this is really what you want to do.

1. Are you comfortable swapping hardware in the notebook to find out if it may really be a hardware instead of software problem? If so, try to swap hard drives (if a spare is available) and install Windows on a different hard drive to test, or run the memory 1 module at a time to see if you have a bad stick of memory (dirty contacts?) or even a bad memory slot on the motherboard.

Another thing to check on a notebook this old is to make sure the fans are running okay and the cpu/gpu temperatures are not too high (do problems only happen when it gets hot, etc.)

Otherwise, you may want to check the software first instead.

2. Unfortunately, I don't have any great ideas to get the recovery partition working, but if you have a way to set it as the active partition, this may help although it may not even be possible for the Vista notebooks (I may be thinking of our WinXP notebooks with recovery partition).

[peezle]

Thanks for the reply, cl-Albert. I don't think there are any issues with the laptop itself. I gave up on keeping Windows 7. I was able to find the original CDs that came with the laptop. I tried using them to reinstall Vista 64, but they didn't work. The install completed CD 1 of 2 and then asked for the Drivers CD. After the Drivers CD ran, the install just sat there with a blank screen and a flashing cursor. THe only thing I could do was force a shutdown and when I reboot, there is no OS there. So..... after trying that several times, I gave up on Vista and successfully installed Windows XP on the machine. However, now I'm faced with trying to find Windows XP drivers for this G50VT-X5. I'm not having any luck in my searches online. Do Windows XP drivers exist for the particular model I have? Thanks.

[cl-Albert]

Hi peezle,
Okay, just thought I'd mention the hardware if it was easier to check (I forgot to ask you to check and clean the heatsinks for dust by the way).

It looks like we have 3 different G50Vt drivers downloads which may not be all that different, but click on this link and search by the G50Vt downloads to see them all if you are interested although I didn't see anything for XP.

If the system asks for the driver disk during the recovery process, just reboot or power off the notebook and it will continue to install Windows without any drivers (the driver disk really isn't necessary and it is how some people want to install Windows anyway to have more control over what is installed).
You can still use the driver disk after you boot into Windows to install drivers or you may want to check our download site for newer driver versions.
The filelist.txt on the driver disk should list all the driver versions if you want to compare with the website downloads.

Good luck!

[peezle]

Thanks again, cl-Albert. For whatever reason, the Vista CDs that came with the laptop just don't work. I tried installing the OS without using the Driver CD, but it still doesn't work. The install never asks for the second of the two OS CDs.

I was able to find a collection of XP drivers online for the G50V series. With the drivers I found, I've taken care of all but two of the yellow question marks in the device manager list. Of the two issues remaining, one is audio (I found a driver for the Realtek sound card and the install was successful. I have sound, but the yellow question mark for audio device remains...) and the other is an unknown device (it looks like it may be the modem, which I don't plan to use). I tried using the Driver CD that came with the system to install the device drivers after I installed XP, but the CD threw up an error message that said the drivers were for Vista only. That's why I had to go to the web to search for drivers for XP. I did look on the ROG website hoping to find drivers, but was unable to locate any drivers (at all).

At any rate, it looks like I'm going to get this machine back up and running with XP. I appreciate your time.

[cl-Albert]

Hi peezle,

fyi.
There were different versions of the ASUS Vista 64-bit recovery disks released, but there is a version of the recovery disks that didn't use the second disk, so if you want to go through the time and trouble to check it (erasing your XP installation as well?), you might still be able to get Vista installed with (one of) those disks (just reboot/power off after the first disk when it asks for the driver disk).
I actually have a copy of the Vista 64-bit recovery disks V2.0 N2113 with 2 disks that I believe will only use 1 of the disks during the recovery process (I may need to double-check though).

You might need to decide if your XP is working good enough and if you would rather keep it although you can make sure the system is stable while it's running at least.