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.

[deejayce09]

I am stuck in the turning on and off and has taken for a long time doing the same and it doesn't show that it is completely done
I'm doing it on a ssd of 240gb

[Cecil_2099]

At process #19 it restarts at LEAST 6 times. Just leave it alone, go out, grab a coffee or watch a TV show or a movie. When you leave it alone it'll do its thing. If say you start it at night and it's still restarting by the time you wake up in the morning, then you may have a problem there.

[spanishflyer]

I'm giving my g75vw to my son, so I tried to use the factory DVD's to restore the computer to the original state and followed the instructions I read on the first message of this thread. I removed the second HDD and used the 3 DVD's to carry out the task.

Problem is that it all went great till I finished and got the message that the installation had gone fine; problem is, when I removed the third DVD and restarted the computer, I got the message that I needed a proper Boot device, so my drive C: was not recognized and the only option I had was the CD-DVD drive. This means that it all went well till I got to section 13 of the instructions (on the first message of this thread). Problem is, I don't know where to go from here.

The drive I have is a 750 GB SSD, plus the other that I have removed temporarily which is a 750 GB HDD.

What do you suggest I do now?

Best regards,

Spanish Flyer

[xeromist]

Were you previously booting from that drive? Is it possible that the other drive was your boot device?

If you upgraded it to Windows 10 you can wipe it and do a clean install from a Windows 10 iso image (download from Microsoft). Windows 10 will read the hardware and reactivate. That might be the quickest fix.

[Julskey]

It could be that your Hard drive is not flagged active. You may have to boot to a hard disk partitioning software (example, powerquest partition magic, or any other bootable hard drive manaing software) and mark the hard drive (and/or partition) to be ACTIVE. Save and reboot.

[McRom37]

Cecil_2099 wrote:
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.

Cecil_2099 ::i have A Question about the Asus Recovery DVDs, not working for 1TB HD: So if my 1TB HD dies, and want to replace it with a new one..its not going to work??? i heard this before.i to have the Asus G75VW=all the same specs as yours.so i will be asked out? if my HD breaks? what if i want to replace the HD that has 285GB with the Windows OS on it for a SSD 500GB Drive.and replace the secondHDD with the 1TB to a 750GB HD??? would that work? That sux, about the 1TB HD wont work, and you confirmed this? Please Reply and tell me my options, cuz i have the latest Version of AI Recovery its(1.0.24) But i did find the new one:( 1.0.28) BUT i dont know if it would be compatible?? its from the same modle system. So please let me know my options and what i can upgrade and what i cant.THANK YOU>

[McRom37]

Cecil_2099 wrote:
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.

Cecil_2099 ::i have A Question about the Asus Recovery DVDs, not working for 1TB HD: So if my 1TB HD dies, and want to replace it with a new one..its not going to work??? i heard this before.i to have the Asus G75VW=all the same specs as yours.so i will be asked out? if my HD breaks? what if i want to replace the HD that has 285GB with the Windows OS on it for a SSD 500GB Drive.and replace the secondHDD with the 1TB to a 750GB HD??? would that work? That sux, about the 1TB HD wont work, and you confirmed this? Please Reply and tell me my options, cuz i have the latest Version of AI Recovery its(1.0.24) But i did find the new one:( 1.0.28) BUT i dont know if it would be compatible?? its from the same modle system. So please let me know my options and what i can upgrade and what i cant.THANK YOU>FROM: McRom37

[McRom37]

Cecil_2099

Cecil_2099 ::i have A Question about the Asus Recovery DVDs, not working for 1TB HD: So if my 1TB HD dies, and want to replace it with a new one..its not going to work??? i heard this before.i to have the Asus G75VW=all the same specs as yours.so i will be asked out? if my HD breaks? what if i want to replace the HD that has 285GB with the Windows OS on it for a SSD 500GB Drive.and replace the secondHDD with the 1TB to a 750GB HD??? would that work? That sux, about the 1TB HD wont work, and you confirmed this? Please Reply and tell me my options, cuz i have the latest Version of AI Recovery its(1.0.24) But i did find the new one:( 1.0.28) BUT i dont know if it would be compatible?? its from the same modle system. So please let me know my options and what i can upgrade and what i cant.THANK YOU>FROM: McRom37