Step-by-Step: Using ASUS Recovery DVDs to Restore G75

[Cecil_2099]

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion and mis-understanding on how to use the ASUS Recovery DVDs you burn by using the AI Recovery program to restore your computer to the "straight from the factory" state, I thought I should make a step-by-step guide to walk owners through it. So here goes:

The version of the AI Recovery Utility currently shipping on all G75s does not recover systems with 1TB hard drives. So before you go around wiping your drive or creating the Recovery DVDs, update the AI Recovery Utility to at least 1.0.24 (download it from the product support page where you can download the drivers).

• If you haven't already, use the AI Recovery Utility (version 1.0.24 or newer, not the 1.0.23 version that comes shipped with the G75) to burn your ASUS Recovery DVDs. You should do this prior to uninstalling any and all "bloatware" and prior to reformatting/wiping/re-partitioning your hard drive. On a G75VW-BBK5 you will end up with three (3) DVDs.
  
• A few notes/assumptions prior to starting:
  - Your computer is off and no DVDs are in the optical drive.
  - You have only one drive connected to the G75 on the right-hand drive bay (based on the drive caddy letter) and that is the drive you want to restore TO.
  - It doesn't matter if the drive is an HDD or SSD and the size does not matter.
  
• Start up your computer and immediately start hitting the 'Esc' key until you see the following screen appear:
  
  
• Place the first ASUS Recovery DVD into your optical drive.
  
• Select your optical drive (on my G75VW-BBK5 that is the HL-DT-ST drive) and hit 'Enter' key.
  
• You will get a black screen with the words "Windows is loading files..." at the bottom with a grey bar at the bottom that will fill white:
  
  
• Windows will load and you will get a dialogue box titled "AI RECOVERY" saying "Are you ready to restore this image?" Click the 'OK' button.
  
• You will get another "AI RECOVERY" dialogue box, this time telling you "Restoring will overwrite your hard drive. Do you want to continue?" Click the 'OK' button.
  
• If you are using the ASUS Recovery DVDs to restore onto a new hard drive, you may get another "AI RECOVERY" dialogue box saying "Your disk layout has been changed. AI Recovery needs to partition your disk again. You will lost all your data in your disk if you continue with the data recovery operation." Click the 'OK' button.
  
• Otherwise you will see an "AI Recovery Restore" dialogue box that says "This DVD/BD will help you recover hidden partition. Check the AC adapter connection and do not interrupt the restoration process." This will have a progress indicator.
  
• The computer will automatically eject the first DVD and prompt you to insert the second DVD and later the third DVD.
  
• When that is complete, the last DVD will eject and an "AI RECOVERY" dialogue box will tell you that it "Successfully restored the disk from the ASUS Recovery DVD/BD. Elapsed time: 00:XX:XX". Click 'OK'. (It took me 00:43:23 (43 minutes) to restore the recovery partition.)
  
• The computer will restart and you'll get another black "Windows is loading files..." screen.
  
• Windows will start and you will get a DOS screen followed by an "ASUS Preload Wizard" dialogue that asks you to select your language to continue. Pick your language and click the 'Next >' button.
  
• Click through the next screen.
  
  
• On the next screen you can choose whichever option you feel is best.
  
  
• Click through the next screen.
  
  
• Click 'Finish' to start the process.
  
  
• This is where you leave the computer alone. You will see a series of DOS screens and the computer will restart itself at least 6 times. Whatever you do, do not interact with the computer. It doesn't matter if it prompts you for something or restarts on its own. Leave it alone to finish everything.
  
• When you see the following screen, you know the recovery process has completed successfully.
  Congratulations, your G75 is now back to it's factory-like condition.
  
  

So in total it took about 1.5 hours to complete (43 minutes to recreate the recovery partition from the DVDs and another 50 minutes to restore back to factory state).

I hope this helps clear up the process!

Update: After serious testing across multiple G75VW users, we can confirm that the ASUS Recovery DVDs do NOT work on 1TB drives (regardless of manufacturer) if they are burned with the base AI Recovery Utility version that ships with the G75VWs. Make sure you install the latest version (1.0.24) BEFORE creating your Recovery DVDs.

[jsheldon]

john_from_ohio wrote:
As I noted along here somewhere ( probably several times ) creating a Win 7 recovery disk DOES NOT WORK on these systems.

It is a windows problem ...

Boot it up with a Win 7 install disk that has SP1 already on it ... and use that for the recovery ... that will work.

If your Win 7 Repair DVD doesn't work on the G75vw that surely tallies with my experience ... wonder why not since as I noted I've booted from these MS Win 7 Repair DVD on other manuracturer's gear and I'm not sure that I even HAVE a W7 Install disk (that I can unearth).

Mebbe there's another bypass I can find. If so, I'll post the information. I'm trying to do a Win 8 upgrade install keeping everything and the Upgrade Assistant keeps kicking mwe off claiming that the USB3 drivers won't work (which makes printers, ext HDDs, mice, etc. pointless and I'm not too keen on pursing THAT further until I know I can restore my current Win 7 image as it's quite large.

Many thanks for the info John.

[john_from_ohio]

jsheldon wrote:
If your Win 7 Repair DVD doesn't work on the G75vw that surely tallies with my experience ... wonder why not since as I noted I've booted from these MS Win 7 Repair DVD on other manuracturer's gear and I'm not sure that I even HAVE a W7 Install disk (that I can unearth).

Many thanks for the info John.

You can find from ( free ) microsoft digital river downloads an ISO of Win 7 including SP1 install that you can download and burn ... its legit.

It may be that a Win 8 install disk can also do this recovery ... have not tried that.

Yes the Win 8 install wants you to un-install the current USB3 driver ... before proceeding ... but the USB external support will come back.

I for one would recommend trying the upgrade on a 2nd external drive not your original though ... pull out everything original when testing this scenario.

[jsheldon]

john_from_ohio wrote:
You can find from ( free ) microsoft digital river downloads an ISO of Win 7 including SP1 install that you can download and burn ... its legit.

It may be that a Win 8 install disk can also do this recovery ... have not tried that.

Yes the Win 8 install wants you to un-install the current USB3 driver ... before proceeding ... but the USB external support will come back.

I for one would recommend trying the upgrade on a 2nd external drive not your original though ... pull out everything original when testing this scenario.

I'll check that all out by this coming weekend if not sooner; TYVM for the suggestions, John.

I still wonder what the glitch on the w7 Sys Recov DVD might be - seems odd (but after all it IS MSstuff).

[john_from_ohio]

jsheldon wrote:

I still wonder what the glitch on the w7 Sys Recov DVD might be - seems odd (but after all it IS MSstuff).

Well the Win 7 install disk recovery of a UEFI based system ONLY works with a Win 7 install that has SP1 on it ...

Guessing that when a ( current aka SP1 based ) Win 7 executable creates the recovery disk it forgets somehow to include UEFI support ??? Should have been tested / should have been caught by microsoft QA testing ... but not so much apparently.

[veky010]

Hi,
recently i bought asus g75vw-1019H (model in croatia: 8gb of ram, 750hb hdd, gtx 660m, win 8). When i tried to make recovery dvd-s with ai recovery burner 1.028 (which i downloaded for win7 because there is no for win 😎 it said "recovery partition does not exist". I looked in disk managment and there where efi system partition 300mb, recovery partiotion (300mb free of 600mb), recovery partition (10.2gb of 20gb free) and two normal partitions (os and data). I decided not to mess up hidden partitions, just install win 7 on os partition. After mesing with secure boot and uefi I managed to formated it through win 7 boot instalation wizard and install win 7 on it.
Now in win7 disk managment it says that all three hidden partitions are empty, but when i boot with win7 disk it says 300mb and 10.2gb free like in win8 disk managment. Trying to install win8 from recovery partition didn't work (it says recovery partition could not be forund).
Have i deleted data from recovery partitions when installing win7 or there was no recovery partition from the begining.

[AllTiger]

Hi people, Excelent post, but I have a huge problem

I tried to install another OS on my g75vw, but after doing that my hard disk (1TB) got something like hidden and is not part of the boot options, does any one know how to fix this???

On the other hand does anyone have or know where to download recovery DVD (for win 😎 since my recovery partitions are hidden of course and I did not create any DVD when win 8 was workin

Thanks all for the attention

[Cliff]

This program is a piece of crap. I am trying to get the hidden partition on a new 128GB SSD with no luck. After burning the 4 disks and restoring, all the steps in the process work normally until after it kicks out the 4th disk indicating job is done. At that point computer will not reboot no matter what I try unless I remove the SSD and put the original hard drive back in. Fooling with setup does nothing. I guess I just have to forget the hidden partition and use my True Image to accomplish the job. Have wasted many hours doing this over and over with no luck.

[FER_RO]

Hi All, I can´t find the AI Recovery in Utilities Section. does any one notice that the program is not there??.
sorry about my English

[Jofica]

I just got a G55VW laptop, with Windows 8 64B installed, but I can't find out the utility to create the AI Recovery discs.
Trying to reboot and pressing f9 doesn't get me to any utility to create any type of recovery discs.
I already spent 3 days looking and trying how to create those discs before starting to load my programs into the system.
It is any ASUS store where can I buy/order the original installation?
Any suggestion will be appreciated...
Thank you

[dcisive]

I'm not sure why ya'll get yourselves wrapped around the axle over such issues. I just picked up a nice little 1tb Seagate outboard USB3 hard drive and downloaded and installed the wonderful and FREE "Macrium Reflect" for windows 7 and 8. Does a nice full image of my entire hard drive in it's current working perfect state in less than 8 minutes. You also burn a recovery disc that allows you to painlessly load the saved image on the external drive. To MY way of thinking THIS is the best way to go. NO discs for recovery of the factory stuff. This puts your entire system back the way it was when it had all your favorite working hardware and software in place (assuming you've gone to the trouble of cleaning house of any bugs, junk files etc. prior to saving the image). I now find the whole process fast and painless. No more recovery discs for me thanks.