Vortex IV restore to defaults procedure

[cyberdemon]

Hi all,

Do you know what the proper procedure is for restoring a Vortex IV to factory default configuration?
I have tried the install disc - with that I get a blank install of Windows 7 - without drivers, or any of the PCS customisations (e.g. background). I can install some drivers from the other disc but there are a lot of random Clevo drivers on that disc, and it is hard to find the correct ones. The fingerprint sensor no longer works, among other things.

I have also tried the backup partition. I pressed F8 on Windows boot to get the recovery menu, but it can't find a system image. On closer inspection, the recovery partition appears to be blank..

Do PCS have a system image that I can use?

The reason I am restoring is for my colleague's laptop - he bought one a few weeks ago after being impressed by mine, but I seem to have done more harm than good in setting it up for him!
We tried to move the C:\Users folder off of the SSD, but it screwed up Windows... I don't suppose anyone knows a way round that one too?

Cheers,
Tom

 

[SmokeDarKnight]

You would need to install windows from scratch, i havent seen a PCS machine with a system image on it, they usually just provide the discs.

Let windows install as much of the drivers as possible then use the disc for any missing ones.

I've done it a few times with both Windows 7 and Windows 8 and have never had to use the PCS Driver Disc as windows finds most of them themselves. This can varys depending on hardware obviously

As for the finger print scanner you need to do that one manually from here. https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...ng-like-a-retarted-seal&highlight=Fingerprint check my post, think its the third one down.

If theres any others that dont wark post back and ill see if i can direct you to a solution.

Hope this helps.

 

[steaky360]

I'd assume PCS do have a sort of image that they use to install everything ready to ship out the laptops. I don't know if they disclose that to customers however. Might be easier to get in touch with PCS and ask them directly. I suspect though the easiest thing to do will be to find the missing drivers (PCS will be able to supply these).

 

[CADMonkey]

My vortex (3 days old) has a recovery partition. If I hold F8 while booting i get an option to set back to its out of the box state (minus specific drivers)...

The partition was already on the laptop when it arrived. I noticed it while using computer management to partition the second disk

 

[SmokeDarKnight]

Nice, did you set that up yourself or was that PCS magic?

 

[cyberdemon]

Hi CadMonkey.

There is a similar thing on my colleague's laptop (the Vortex IV 17" that I was talking about when I started this thread) - if you press F8 you get an option to repair windows - i.e. startup repair or restore a recovery image. However when i tried that a couple of weeks ago, it cannot detect any available recovery images and so the restore partition doesn't work.

In any case, we have windows working well enough, and we aren't going to be reinstalling again any time soon.
The fingerprint scanner is working now - Thanks
However, we still don't have a working RGB keyboard. The hotkey.exe program that normally controls it just pops up a message saying "The system needs to be restarted again. Make sure all driver is installed". I tried reinstalling it, but it still doesn't control the keyboard, even after a reboot. The version it reports is "8.0132".
TBH that whole hotkey.exe seems a pretty crappy piece of chinese software. Is there an alternative?

I my own Vortex IV 15" is happily running Debian/Linux (alongside Windows 7) and I am surprised to say that getting all the hardware drivers working from scratch is actually easier under Linux than it is in Windows!

As for the reason we embarked on this perilous journey of reinstalling windows in the first place - I still can't find a way to get Windows to put highly varying User data (like web cache files, temp files, program settings) on the spinning disk rather than the MSATA SSD, which is an MLC flash that will wear out after a mere 1000 write/erase cycles.
Windows supposedly supports symbolic links like C:\Users -> D:\Users, but apparently some parts of windows can't cope with that and just break.
Suffice to say this is not a problem in Linux!

In hindsight I think the best option for Windows would have been to buy a significantly bigger SSD, and ensure that it is regularly backed up to the spinning disk.