To cut a very long story short, I have 2 PC's from different manufacturers. One is mine and the other is a friend's. Both came with Genuine OEM Windows 8 Single Language preinstalled. When attempting to update my PC to 8.1 from 8.0, it failed to boot so
I took it my vendor. They tried restoring 8, which involved wiping the HDD (incl. the recovery partition) and when they failed they installed a pirate Windows 7 and accused me of "messing" with the system. They voided my warranty :'(
I made a Recovery USB. My PC boots to it but refuses to install. Says "A required drive partition is missing" (Probably the recovery partition).
So then I came across the idea of making an image from my friend's PC to install on mine, after "generalizing" his PC: ("The Sysprep /generalize command removes unique information from a Windows installation so that you can safely reuse that image on a different computer.")
Source: Capture an Image for Deployment (Generalize)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824938.aspx
But I still have some questions:
1. When my friend's PC makes the image, will I be given the option to decide the file's location (such as creating it on an external HDD)? If not, where will I find it if I boot the PC in a live environment (such as a Windows setup DVD or Ubuntu LiveCD)?
2. How large is this image (in GB)? Can I split it?
3. After completing, how do I "undo" the generalization on my friend's PC so it goes back to normal?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
PS: To Mircosoft: Please consider making the Windows 8/8.1 Single Language ISO available for OEM customers to download in case of problems. This will help us avoid these complex techniques.
Thank you.
I made a Recovery USB. My PC boots to it but refuses to install. Says "A required drive partition is missing" (Probably the recovery partition).
So then I came across the idea of making an image from my friend's PC to install on mine, after "generalizing" his PC: ("The Sysprep /generalize command removes unique information from a Windows installation so that you can safely reuse that image on a different computer.")
Source: Capture an Image for Deployment (Generalize)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824938.aspx
But I still have some questions:
1. When my friend's PC makes the image, will I be given the option to decide the file's location (such as creating it on an external HDD)? If not, where will I find it if I boot the PC in a live environment (such as a Windows setup DVD or Ubuntu LiveCD)?
2. How large is this image (in GB)? Can I split it?
3. After completing, how do I "undo" the generalization on my friend's PC so it goes back to normal?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
PS: To Mircosoft: Please consider making the Windows 8/8.1 Single Language ISO available for OEM customers to download in case of problems. This will help us avoid these complex techniques.
Thank you.
