Video: quickly factory restore an Asus Eee PC with SSD

The last time I restored the Asus Eee PC, I mentioned that it only took about five minutes using the included recovery DVD. Last night I needed to restore again (due to my efforts to install XP) and decided to try the hidden recovery partition on the flash-based storage in the unit. I was blown away by how quickly the device was restored with that factory-fresh smell. So much so that I had to repeat the process on camera for you and time it!

While it's not often we need to restore our mobile devices, I see a tremendous benefit to the SSD approach and I'll likely never remove the recovery partition. If I face a complete system meltdown, I'll want to get back up and running as quickly as possible. There's always the question of restoring applications and data locally, but at the end of the video, I share some thoughts on that topic.

Thanks to ThoughtFix for the inspiration on this approach.

Comments

[Brad Linder]

Because I'm still learning Linux, I've done this style of reset at least four or five times since getting my Eee PC earlier this month.

Like you, I have much of my important information online, so as long as I can access Firefox after a quick restore, I'm pretty much set.

For that reason, I've decided only to add the applications I need most to the Eee PC... and that works well because it has such a limited amount of storage. So every time I do a factory reset, I reinstall the full desktop, add GIMP, Audacity, and that's about it. Well, plus WINE to run Reaper for more advanced digital audio editing, but I haven't really put that solution through the paces to see if it's worth it yet.

[Woadan]

Kevin, especially compelling is the thought you had on moving to using the cloud. I almost exclusively use web-based because I don't have to have th HD I store POP3 mail on. But I don't use other services online too much yet. That's partly because I don't trust them all yet, and partly because, well, I just haven't. ;)

Curiously missing from both your and James' gearbags is any mention of cloud-based services.

Might we be seeing something soon? (Hint, hint!)

Woadan

[Woadan]

Grrr... Web-based mail, though I left the "mail" off!

Grrr!
;)

Woadan

[bobm]

How much disk is lost to the recovery partition?

I ask since my eeePc will be here tomorrow (UPS willing)..

I also ordered the 2Gram but will not install for a week or 2 to see how it runs without it and not void the warranty.

[ThoughtFix]

iPhone? Nooooo! It's an iPod touch! Great video and idea, Kevin. Thanks for the props.

A reader told me I started a whole new genre of unboxing videos. I hope this is true: Every unboxing I do in the future will be a "from sealed to surfing" video for these types of devices. I hope your team and others do it too.

At CES - Coffee is on me.

[Mitchell Oke]

That's amazing! I have had Windows PCs in past that have taken longer to BOOT than that!

[DaveG]

Why not replace the standard reset image with a copy of your own image, including the apps you use? That way a 'factory reset' takes you back to where *you* want to be.

[paco]

What most of you don't realize is the f9 restore process on the eee pc doesn't actually do an image restore. It wipes the user partition and reboots. With nothing in the user partition, the system automatically launches into setup mode. This is akin to saying deleting everything in your Windows My Documents folder is sufficient to reimage your desktop pc's. Yes it is fast, but it is not in any way related to a full system partition restore.

[Jhall]

You have a sdhc slot that can store 8gb and they are making them higher all the time. Online is great when you can be online. Also, have a local when servers go down.

[Billyo]

Fabulous - I have been fooling around with Linux (of which I know very little). the result was that I lost most of my icons - espec the nework one. So I was stuck as I did not know how to get on the network except by using the icons.
Now I know I can always get back to square one with F9

Thanks

[Bjorn]

Great, thanks! I had my eee for a week when DCOP server error messages started to show up. This video made it all work again. And within 5 minutes. Thanks again.

[Jonny]

Okay, I trashed my linux install on my eee and freed up about 2 or 3 hours to reinstall it this evening to its factory settings... 2 minutes later and I'm done. I'm very very impressed with this feature. Thanks Kevin. Great vid.

I was about to buy myself a 4GB usb flash drive since my 1GB wasn't big enough for the install from the DVD. I'm actually in shock at how fast that was. One very happy eee user here :)

[Kasper]

Have you done this with Windows XP installed? And wich version of Eee PC are you using? I can't get a F9-menu on my Eee 701 running XP.

[Des Walsh]

This was very helpful. I got into a bit of a hole trying to install WIRE. Started getting error messages and decided I should probably do a factory restore. Your post and video were both reassuring and informative. Thank you.

I need WIRE to access Audacity on my flash drive and still haven't figured out how to download it.

[Des Walsh]

WINE, I meant - WINE :(

[Gavin Wilson]

Very useful. I hadn't tried to do any mods to Linux but somehow my Firefox had picked up a bug that made it unusable. A Netbook without a browser is almost useless. This video has fixed everything.