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

Cecil_2099
Level 11
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:
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  • 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:
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  • 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.
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  • On the next screen you can choose whichever option you feel is best.
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  • Click through the next screen.
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  • Click 'Finish' to start the process.
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  • 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.
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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.
G75VW-BBK5 (Stock configuration with added Crucial M4 256GB SATA SSD as OS boot drive)

Need to know how to restore your G75 to it's factory-like condition? Go to my step-by-step guide:
Step-by-Step: Using ASUS Recovery DVDs to Restore G75

Want to download the latest drivers and utilities for your G75/G55? Go to this thread:
Downloading New Drivers/Utilities for G75/G55
353,665 Views
217 REPLIES 217

I agree that is the way to go!

The recovery disks do not work on the 750GB disks as well. The recovery disk leave the disk "hidden" from the bios after it completes the writing the partitions.

One additional question to the formatting when recovery is done by DVD (on Win 7). The harddisk is formatted in mid-level-mode (overwriting with zeros)? Or may it be possible to restore any data afterwards? Thanks in advance and regards.

Cecil_2099
Level 11
Yes, that's normal as long as it goes back to being almost silent once it's all done with the recovery. If it stays at full speed, then something's wrong with your hardware.
G75VW-BBK5 (Stock configuration with added Crucial M4 256GB SATA SSD as OS boot drive)

Need to know how to restore your G75 to it's factory-like condition? Go to my step-by-step guide:
Step-by-Step: Using ASUS Recovery DVDs to Restore G75

Want to download the latest drivers and utilities for your G75/G55? Go to this thread:
Downloading New Drivers/Utilities for G75/G55

Cecil_2099 wrote:
Yes, that's normal as long as it goes back to being almost silent once it's all done with the recovery. If it stays at full speed, then something's wrong with your hardware.


Thanks for the information! It's normal now.

Cecil_2099
Level 11
Does your X42J come with a single physical hard drive or two? If it comes with one, then OS and DATA are partitions on the same hard drive and you might be able to extend the size of the OS partition from within Windows to solve your space problem. If it's two, you should be able to use your system's recovery discs to restore to the larger drive. Just make sure you back up all your data before using the system recovery discs as it'll wipe out EVERYTHING.
G75VW-BBK5 (Stock configuration with added Crucial M4 256GB SATA SSD as OS boot drive)

Need to know how to restore your G75 to it's factory-like condition? Go to my step-by-step guide:
Step-by-Step: Using ASUS Recovery DVDs to Restore G75

Want to download the latest drivers and utilities for your G75/G55? Go to this thread:
Downloading New Drivers/Utilities for G75/G55

My hard drive are not single. Both are seperated, with this restore will they ask you which hard drive do you want to recover? If my D drive has been format, will my C drive be formatted too? Or my C drive will became secondary drive?

Hydroxide wrote:
My hard drive are not single. Both are seperated, with this restore will they ask you which hard drive do you want to recover? If my D drive has been format, will my C drive be formatted too? Or my C drive will became secondary drive?


Ummm ... looks likely that there is just one hard drive in your laptop with 2 visible partitions.

Double check by going into disk management tool or device manager ...

If ( as appears likely ) that you just have 1 hard drive should be able to proceed by resizing partitions. Get a backup first ... have a computer shop maybe do the resizing if this change is too complicated for you.

If you do a DVD restore then you lose everything that you have done since it was shipped from the factory.

john_from_ohio wrote:
Ummm ... looks likely that there is just one hard drive in your laptop with 2 visible partitions.

Double check by going into disk management tool or device manager ...

If ( as appears likely ) that you just have 1 hard drive should be able to proceed by resizing partitions. Get a backup first ... have a computer shop maybe do the resizing if this change is too complicated for you.

If you do a DVD restore then you lose everything that you have done since it was shipped from the factory.


I have check my disk drive there's only one, but i don't want to resize the partitions, i want to restore is because my computer iss running slow. i'v downloaded too many junky that i don't know. Can i just do a restore on my D drives? But the problem is when restore will they ask which drive to restore?



This is what i have in my disk management a primary partition & a Logical drive. I want to format my locial drive, will it able to work?

Cecil_2099
Level 11
Because you have only one physical disk drive with two partitions, the factory restore DVD will erase everything on both partitions. The DVDs will format both the primary partition and the logical drive. You will not get an option to choose which one to keep and which one to erase.
G75VW-BBK5 (Stock configuration with added Crucial M4 256GB SATA SSD as OS boot drive)

Need to know how to restore your G75 to it's factory-like condition? Go to my step-by-step guide:
Step-by-Step: Using ASUS Recovery DVDs to Restore G75

Want to download the latest drivers and utilities for your G75/G55? Go to this thread:
Downloading New Drivers/Utilities for G75/G55