Reinstall windows 8 on new Drive, without disk

aloot

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Jun 13, 2012
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I bought an Asus laptop from Best Buy. No windows 8 disk. No optical drive. 750 gb HDD.

I then bought a 128 gb SSD. I want to reinstall windows on the SSD.

I tried making a recovery usb bootable using an external HDD. It loaded and eventually said that I was "missing one of the partitions" and could not continue.

What can I do?

 
Solution
Migrate Windows 8 from Laptop HDD to SSD without using an Installation Disk A little tricky as you have to replace your HDD with the SSD unless you have the luxury of two Drive Bays as found on some 17" models. The method involves creating a System Image and a Repair Disk/Drive which everyone should do anyway in case Windows is corrupted or you suffer a drive failure. Ideally you will require two drives, a small USB Flash Drive for the Repair Drive, and a means of storing a System Image of your C drive, either a large capacity USB External Drive, or a large capacity Flash Drive.
First create a Repair/Recovery Drive/Disk Insert your USB drive/SD Card At your 'Start Screen', type Recovery. From Settings choose 'Create a Recovery...
Well the recovery partition on most of them only work if it is using the original hard drive so that would not work. You best bet would be to order a recovery CD from Asus. Or find a Windows 8 download ISO for the version you have and then use the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool to make a usb stick and yes it will work with the Windows 8 ISO even though it says Windows 7. That would be the best way. It would give you a default Windows 8 install without the added Asus crap that gets loaded. From there you get the latest Windows 8 drivers for your laptop from Asus.
 
Migrate Windows 8 from Laptop HDD to SSD without using an Installation Disk A little tricky as you have to replace your HDD with the SSD unless you have the luxury of two Drive Bays as found on some 17" models. The method involves creating a System Image and a Repair Disk/Drive which everyone should do anyway in case Windows is corrupted or you suffer a drive failure. Ideally you will require two drives, a small USB Flash Drive for the Repair Drive, and a means of storing a System Image of your C drive, either a large capacity USB External Drive, or a large capacity Flash Drive.
First create a Repair/Recovery Drive/Disk Insert your USB drive/SD Card At your 'Start Screen', type Recovery. From Settings choose 'Create a Recovery Drive' Here you can choose your preferred Media. You'll be creating your own 'Recovery' so not much point in copying the Recovery Partition...
Reducing 'C' Drive to less than the capacity of your SSD.
Where System Images are concerned, small is good. You must reduce your C drive to less than the size of your SSD. To manipulate the HDD I tend to prefer EaseUs Partition Manager as its easy to use and reliable, you can use Windows Disk Management if you prefer.
http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html
Run Partition Manager.
At the Main Screen simply click on your C drive to highlight it and move the slider from Right to Left to reduce C to less than the size of your SSD
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Click Apply to make the changes, these will take place when Windows restarts and before it boots.
Create System Image
Again, at your Start Screen, type Recovery. From Settings choose 'Windows 7 File Recovery' and select 'Create a System Image' Choose your Media from the drop-down lists, select C and Next.
Migrate OS to SSD
Exchange your HDD for the SSD, enable boot from USB device and with USB Recovery Drive hit the Pwr Sw. Choose your Keyboard, then 'Troubleshoot your PC' 'Advanced Options' 'System Image recovery' Plug in System Image drive when prompted. Should work! Remember to remove all USB drives before attempting to boot from your SSD.
 
Solution

aloot

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Jun 13, 2012
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10,530
I'm attempting now to create a recovery disk and image. I'll post back to confirm whether or not it was successful for me. Thank you gentlemen. I appreciate the assistance.

Edit: It does not seem to work. I made a recovery disk and a drive image. I replaced the HDD with the SSD, and booted from the recovery usb. I got an error message that said my pc needed to be repaired and that a usb or disk was required. It did not recognize the recovery usb as such, in other words.

 


Think you have to have only the Repair drive/disk installed initially, ie. leave the Image drive unplugged until it's asked for.