Originally Posted by tizmeinnit (Post 35491087)

interesting I will research recovery options for win 8 its not as clear as I thought

---------- Post added at 22:19 ---------- Previous post was at 22:05 ----------

There are some nice simple recovery tools on the windows 8 dvd if you created one. I suggest everyone does

---------- Post added at 22:27 ---------- Previous post was at 22:19 ----------

ok a little how to create a start up USB drive ,everyone should do this if they do not have media

On the new ui screen goto corner select search click settings tab and type recovery. Select recovery tab then select create a recovery drive. It will search out the drive and create you a nice bootable restore USB

You can get there by win key and r together and run control.exe /name Microsoft.Recovery

---------- Post added at 22:45 ---------- Previous post was at 22:27 ----------

Shift and F8 is meant to boot you into recovery . Now this is all well and good but my Asus mobo in its stupid wisdom uses F8 for boot select so when I try I either get the boot list or I am to late. In theory most of you will get into recovery using shift and F8. If you actually want to use safe mode you can enter recovery/troubleshoot/advanced options/windows start up settings

---------- Post added at 22:46 ---------- Previous post was at 22:45 ----------

Glad ive been pushed into a bit of research tonight otherwise I would have been stuck lol

Originally Posted by MarkC1984 (Post 35492485)

Can I just ask what security software people are using? I used MS Security Essentials, and was told that it won't work with Windows 8. I couldn't use Avast or AVG, and McAfee tended to slow my laptop down to a crawl.

I would like a free one if MS Security cannot be used in W8.

Originally Posted by MarkC1984 (Post 35492498)

Thanks, nice to know it comes with an AV program installed.

Originally Posted by Dai (Post 35492502)

Indeed, although Norton and Macafee won't be best pleased..

Originally Posted by Graham M (Post 35492514)

Just a warning, if you happen to have a 32-bit OS installed it will automatically download/upgrade a 32-bit OS, if you want to install the 64-bit version you can use the same key but will have to get your hands on an x64 disc as it doesn't give you the option on the download.

Originally Posted by MarkC1984 (Post 35492565)

Just checked my System Info, and I am running a 64 bit Windows 8 OS, so obviously you do get a downloaded 64 bit Windows.

Originally Posted by mike_gain (Post 35491124)

Yes I made the newbie error of just installing without creating boot device (as I had no DVDs and my USB drives were at work). I was thinking "yeah I'll do that when I get back from my holiday".

After 15 years of backing up, being careful and creating tiers of redundancy I let my gaurd slip due to impatience on Friday. Thankfully I was able to install Ubuntu to overwrite my corrupted Windows 8 install (and also prove that it's not my disk that's in a bad way) so I have a laptop to use until I can get Windows 8 back up. I really was that impressed by how little power it used and how quick it woke from sleep.

The Microsoft Techs tried their best by leading me through the steps to downloading windows 8 on my spare XP machine. However on that machine I do not get the option to create a bootable device. I don't know if this is because I have already downloaded it or because XP doesn't support creating a USB device somehow.

Originally Posted by Russ (Post 35493948)

Yep just been through something similar. I didn't create a bootable device and this afternoon just after I sign in the screen goes back. The cursor is still there but neither the desktop or Metro will load. Spoke to MS support who were about as useful as VM's Indian callcentre and realised the only way was to reformat by installing 7 again then downloading 8 on top of it. My old XP system wouldn't allow me to download a copy on to USB as I hoped that would be a quicker way. No chance.