You have an option to restore your ASUS notebook to factory defaults by using recovery DVDs prepared with AI Recovery or just by pressing F9 while your original OS is loaded.
Some people install a different OS or upgrade to Windows 8—as in my case,—and as a result they are unable to boot into recovery system via F9 thingy anymore. This is because the newly installed (upgraded) OS doesn't know about your factory recovery partition and how to boot into it using F9.
If you're cautious enough, you can boot from your DVDs anytime, but if you're not lucky, yet you've managed to keep recovery partition intact, you can load another copy of Windows and run AI Recovery to create ISO/DVD to boot from using your DVD-drive.
Moreover, you don't need a DVD-drive! I've seen people buying DVD-drives mainly because they need to boot from recovery DVDs they created. But I could successfully boot from my USB-stick!
All that you need is a 4GB USB-flash and your ISOs. Just make a new file system on the flash, copy the contents from the first ISO to it entirely including the file AsusRdvd.img, and choose it as a boot device from the menu which appears following ESC key press during BIOS POST. Voilà!
As recovery is proceeding, you will probably be prompted by Recovery Wizard to select the preferred language during recovery, then, at something like 15%, the Wizard asks you to insert the next DVD which has a file AsusRdvd.001 on it.
I had no spare USB-flash at hand, but I had another box in front of me! I just unplugged the flash, deleted the first img-file from it, and then copied AsusRdvd.001 to it. After plugging it back to my notebook, the Wizard was able to find the subsequent image file and continue to load.
The same actions were done with another ISOs as Wizard asked for the image files, until finally it loaded off the media and started the main recovery process.
I used this approach with my Zenbook UX32VD which came with Windows 7 and your mileage may vary.
Hope this saved you from buying a DVD-drive and your $50! Also chances are you can use 16GB+ USB-flash if you have one; just copy the contents from all ISOs to USB-flash at once ;^]
Some people install a different OS or upgrade to Windows 8—as in my case,—and as a result they are unable to boot into recovery system via F9 thingy anymore. This is because the newly installed (upgraded) OS doesn't know about your factory recovery partition and how to boot into it using F9.
If you're cautious enough, you can boot from your DVDs anytime, but if you're not lucky, yet you've managed to keep recovery partition intact, you can load another copy of Windows and run AI Recovery to create ISO/DVD to boot from using your DVD-drive.
Moreover, you don't need a DVD-drive! I've seen people buying DVD-drives mainly because they need to boot from recovery DVDs they created. But I could successfully boot from my USB-stick!
All that you need is a 4GB USB-flash and your ISOs. Just make a new file system on the flash, copy the contents from the first ISO to it entirely including the file AsusRdvd.img, and choose it as a boot device from the menu which appears following ESC key press during BIOS POST. Voilà!
As recovery is proceeding, you will probably be prompted by Recovery Wizard to select the preferred language during recovery, then, at something like 15%, the Wizard asks you to insert the next DVD which has a file AsusRdvd.001 on it.
I had no spare USB-flash at hand, but I had another box in front of me! I just unplugged the flash, deleted the first img-file from it, and then copied AsusRdvd.001 to it. After plugging it back to my notebook, the Wizard was able to find the subsequent image file and continue to load.
The same actions were done with another ISOs as Wizard asked for the image files, until finally it loaded off the media and started the main recovery process.
I used this approach with my Zenbook UX32VD which came with Windows 7 and your mileage may vary.
Hope this saved you from buying a DVD-drive and your $50! Also chances are you can use 16GB+ USB-flash if you have one; just copy the contents from all ISOs to USB-flash at once ;^]