I just got a new Windows 8.1 PC and it works fine. As a recovery precaution I made a Windows 8.1 recovery disk on a brand new PNY USB 2.0 flash thumb drive (32GB drive) using the Windows 8.1 Control Panel Advanced Recovery tools "Create a Recovery drive" selection. I also indicated to copy the recovery partition from the PC when making this (but I don't delete this partition on the PC). So I thought I would test this recovery drive to see if I can boot from it. I insert the USB flash drive into a USB 2.0 port on the PC and restart the PC. I hit F12 during the PC boot process and select this disk as the temporary boot disk and hit return. The PC then gives me an error message screen basically saying
"Boot Manager
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware of software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:
1.Insert your Windows installation disc and restart the computer.
2.Choose your language settings, and then click "Next".
3.Click "Repair your computer." If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors."
So I'm a little confused as to why the successfully just created recovery drive is giving me this error. I'll try another USB thumb drive to see if that makes a difference but I'm guessing it won't so thought I'd ask about this here. I assume the process makes this a bootable disk. I'd seen other posts on PC boot problems that give this same error but have verified, as shown below, using the "diskpart" program that the usb drive has 1 primary partition that is active. So not sure why it's complaining.
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 1863 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 2 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 3 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 4 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 5 Online 29 GB 0 B
Disk 6 Online 116 GB 0 B
DISKPART> select disk 5
Disk 5 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> list partition
Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 29 GB 1024 KB
DISKPART> select partition 1
Partition 1 is now the selected partition.
DISKPART> detail partition
Partition 1
Type : 0C
Hidden: No
Active: Yes
Offset in Bytes: 1048576
Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 9 I RECOVERY FAT32 Removable 29 GB Healthy
DISKPART>
Greg
"Boot Manager
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware of software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:
1.Insert your Windows installation disc and restart the computer.
2.Choose your language settings, and then click "Next".
3.Click "Repair your computer." If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors."
So I'm a little confused as to why the successfully just created recovery drive is giving me this error. I'll try another USB thumb drive to see if that makes a difference but I'm guessing it won't so thought I'd ask about this here. I assume the process makes this a bootable disk. I'd seen other posts on PC boot problems that give this same error but have verified, as shown below, using the "diskpart" program that the usb drive has 1 primary partition that is active. So not sure why it's complaining.
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 1863 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 2 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 3 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 4 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 5 Online 29 GB 0 B
Disk 6 Online 116 GB 0 B
DISKPART> select disk 5
Disk 5 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> list partition
Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 29 GB 1024 KB
DISKPART> select partition 1
Partition 1 is now the selected partition.
DISKPART> detail partition
Partition 1
Type : 0C
Hidden: No
Active: Yes
Offset in Bytes: 1048576
Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 9 I RECOVERY FAT32 Removable 29 GB Healthy
DISKPART>
Greg
