How to create a Windows 8 Recovery Drive?

A Windows 8 Recovery Drive allows you to access Advanced Start-up Options. It contains troubleshooting tools for Windows 8 like Command Prompt, System Restore, Refresh Your PC, Rest Your PC, Automatic Repair, etc.

Once we have a newly installed Windows 8 Operating System, the user should create a Recovery Drive. It can be created from any working Windows 8 operating system (Not necessary to create from your own machine). It is same as the System Repair Disc created for the Windows 7 (Available in my Previous Blog).

How To Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc?

Lets start with the process.

Here are the steps:

1. Open the Windows 8 Control Panel. Windows 8 includes a tool to create a Recovery Drive and very easy to access from the Control Panel.

2. Touch or click on the System and Security link.
Note: You won't see System and Security if your Control Panel view is set to Large icons or Small icons. In your case, just tap or click on Recovery and then move on to Step 5.

3. In the System and Security window, Touch or click on the Action Center link at the top.

4. In the Action Center window, Touch or click on Recovery, located at the bottom of the window.

5. In the Recovery window, Touch or click on the Create a recovery drive link.

6. Connect the flash drive as the Windows 8 Recovery Drive to the USB port. Disconnect all other external drives. It is only to avoid confusion in later steps.

7. Check the Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive check box if it is available.

8. Touch or click on the Next button. Wait while Recovery Drive Creator searches for drives available to be used as a Recovery Drive.

9. On the Select the USB flash drive screen, choose the drive letter that corresponds to the flash drive you want to use as a Windows 8 Recovery Drive. Touch or click on the Next button.

10. Touch or click on the Create button to begin the Recovery Drive creation process.
Important: Please take note of the warning on this screen: Everything on the drive will be deleted. Please make sure you have backed up the personal files on this drive if any, before you Touch or click Create button.

11. Wait while Windows 8 creates the Recovery Drive, which involves formatting the flash drive and then copying the necessary files to it.

12. When the Recovery Drive creation process is complete, you will see a The recovery drive is ready message. Touch or click on the Finish button.

Thanks for reading blog !

Read More

Windows 7 - How To Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc ?

Hi Everyone,

A Windows 7 System Repair Disc enables you access to Windows 7's System Recovery Options. It is a powerful set of Microsoft in-built diagnostic and repair utilities.

It is highly advisable to create a System Repair Disc. With a System Repair Disc, you can access Windows 7 diagnostic tools like Startup Repair, System Restore, System Image Recovery, Windows Memory Diagnostic, and Command Prompt. System repair Disc should be stored in a Optical Disc rather USB Flash drive.

Here are the steps to create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc:

1. Open Run window by pressing Win+R key.

2. Type recdisc and hit enter.

Note: This can be accessed also from the start menu. Start -> All Programs -> Maintenance -> Create a System Repair Disc

3. Choose your optical disc drive from the Drive: drop-down box.

4. Insert a blank disc in your optical drive. Make sure the blank CD/DVD shoould have enough space. The size of System repair Disc will be less than 200 MB.

5. Click the Create disc button. Now Windows 7 will create the System Repair Disc. No special disc burning software is required.

6. Once the System Repair Disc creation is complete, Windows 7 displays a dialog box that you can close by clicking the Close button.

7. Click the OK button on the original Create a system repair disc window.

Now our System Recovery Disc is ready to be used.

Thanks for reading my blog !

Read More

Windows - How to use bootsect command to fix the boot issues?

Hi Everyone,

 

We might have come across operating system boot issues. Usually hal.dll errors in Windows 7, 8, and Vista. Here is the windows in-built solution to fix the volume boot record errors. 

Boot Sector restoring program is available in windows which is bootsect command. It is a command line program available from Advanced Startup Options or System Recovery Options. The entire operation may take 10-15 minutes.

Here is how we fix these errors,

1. Open the Advanced Startup Options (Windows 8) or boot to the System Recovery Options menu (Windows 7 & Vista) (Which can be accessed by booting from the OS Installation Disc).

Another Option is to Create a Windows 8 Recovery Drive or How To Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc (You may expect these topics in the future posts)

2. Go to  Command Prompt from the Advanced Startup Option

3. At the prompt, type the bootsect command as shown below and then press Enter:

bootsect /nt60 sys

The above bootsect command will update the volume boot code on the partition used to boot Windows to BOOTMGR which is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and later Windows operating systems.

Here nt60 switch applies the boot code for BOOTMGR (Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and later Windows operating systems) while the nt52 switch applies the boot code for NTLDR (Other versions of windows).

4. After running the bootsect command as shown in the last step, you should see a result that looks something like this:

C: (\\?\Volume{33a450c8-2331-12e0-6015-706e6f6e6563})
Successfully updated NTFS filesystem bootcode. 
Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.

If you get some kind of error, or this option doesn't work after you restart Windows normally again, try running bootsect /nt60 all command instead. 

5. Exit from the Command Prompt window and then remove the Windows disc from your optical drive or the Windows flash drive from its USB port.

6. Select the Restart button from the System Recovery Options window or click Continue from the main Advanced Startup Options screen.

7. And now you have your Windows boot normally.

If you still get any errors, try the command bootsect /nt60 all  given in the step 4.

Thanks for reading my blog !

Read More