This article – Windows 8.1 Update Leaves OEM Owners With Broken Restore Function describes a problem that I have encountered on all of my home built computers – AND it is bloody annoying.
In summary if you use the free app to upgrade an OEM Win 8 system to Win 8.1, the very handy and useful “PC Refresh” and “PC Reset” functions no longer work.
Quotes from this article:
Microsoft made a huge blunder that could leave you in a bind should you ever need to use the Refresh or Restore recovery tools after you upgrade.
AND
Amazingly, Microsoft is aware of the problem and doesn’t seem to care. IT did not apologize, nor does it have any plans to release the ISO, or seem to have any interest in fixing the problem
There is further information here:
And information on how to download the 8.1 iso with a Win 8 key here:
http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-81-tip-download-windows-81-iso-windows-8-product-key
I have not tried to download the iso yet and frankly I don’t see why I should have to go to all this effort.
Suffice to say that I am not a happy camper.
My work around is to create a system image (using the very useful old Win 7 system image function that can still be found in 8.1.)
In my opinion this is the best solution in that you can image the drive after you have set it up and installed and activated all of your programs. Even with the less destructive PC Refresh you lose traditionally installed programs / activations including Office.
In my case I used up my last remaining Foxit activation when I was trying to solve the problem caused by the 8.1 upgrade. I thought I had done something wrong and went back twice to do a fresh install from the Win 8 install DVD.
All of the time that I wasted on this was bad enough but I am really more annoyed that MS did not put a warning in the 8.1 upgrade app that this might happen particularly as I completed the upgrade on my 2 computers plus another home build from a friend before I became aware of the issue.
Anyhow, if the reports that Microsoft doesn’t care are accurate, there is little use in whining.
My MacBook is now a few years old and, even though it still works well, when the time comes to upgrade, it will definitely be another MacBook not a PC. (That’ll teach them to annoy me!!)
THIS IS HOW TO DO A SYSTEM IMAGE:
Find a place for the image to be recorded – either on a separate HDD in the computer or on an external drive. (Try to avoid burning to DVDs.)
Go to Control Panel / File History and click on “System Image Backup” in the bottom left.
Follow the prompts – it is easy.
IMPORTANT _ after you are finished you have to make a new USB Repair Disk or recovery drive. NOTE! a Repair CD/ DVD made for Win 8 will not work. You have to make a new one for 8.1 and it can only be on a USB Thumb Drive – not an optical disk.
Insert a Thumb Drive – a 500mb one is more than enough. Even though you don’t have to, I format it as NTFS and label it “Win 8.1 64 (or 32) bit recovery”.
Open Control Panel / File History / Recovery (bottom left) / Create a Recovery Drive – At this screen you will see (if you have the problem) that you cannot click on the option to “Copy the recovery partition”. If you can click this box you probably don’t have this problem.
Follow the prompts. It only takes a minute or so.
TO RE-INSTALL YOUR WIN 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE:
1. IMPORTANT – If your computer has more than one internal HDD, make sure you know which drive is your (imaged) C drive – Either look at “This PC” in Explorer for the size of the disks (usually a good way to tell) or go to Disk Management for full details. You will need to know this when you get to No 10.
2. Boot from the USB recovery drive . The option to boot from USB HDD worked for me.
3. After allowing a few seconds for the USB Recovery to load, choose your keyboard layout. In Australia we use US keyboard – you have to use the mouse to click on more options to get to “US” at the end.
4. Now click on “Troubleshoot – Refresh your PC or use Advanced Tools”;
5. Click “Advanced Options”;
6. Click “System Image Recovery”;
7. Click “Windows 8.1” (this should be the only option);
8. The next screen asks for the location of the back-up image. Find / choose where the system image is located – usually the default “last image” will be the one;
9. Click “Format and re-partition” and then click the “Exclude” box;
10. IMPORTANT – Make sure you click to exclude all drives except the C drive to which you want the image to be re-installed. – See No 1;
11. Follow the prompts. When it is finished, remove the USB Recovery Thumb Drive and re-start.
The whole process is quick and painless and will restore your computer to the date that the image was made. I just did it on the computer I am now using (my HTPC) and it finished in 10 minutes. (Although my C drive only has 40 GB of stuff on it.)
Everything will be “as it was”, activations included. IMHO this is by far the best restore option. You can easily update the image but be sure that your computer is up to date and free of problems before you do.
Failing this, if PC Refresh / Restore does not work, you have no choice but to start over with a re-install of Win 8 from the original disk or source.