[Windows RT General] BlackSoil:
Consolidated Guide to Recovery your TF600T!

Hi guys,

After spending 2 weeks pondering around the Internet and this thread, I've finally figured out how to restore my TF600T.

I want to summarize what I've learned and hopefully you can benefit from it.

Useful Notes:

1. You can restore your TF600 even if you forgot to make a recovery image. For this, you'll have to use someone else's image. And fortunately, it's available here.

2. You may not be able to use TF600TG or other variant's image on TF600T. How'd you check if you're using a proper image? Just try it! If it's improper your device will simply refuse to boot with a certain error code. I spent a week to figure out I was using a wrong image! The tricky part is that you'd still be able to enter recovery mode even with a wrong image!

3. The USB drive that you want to use for recovery has to have GPT partition, and formatted to FAT32 filesystem. I personally used GParted on Linux for this. How'd you check that you do this properly? Try getting into USB recovery mode. If you can't, probably you messed up.

Different modes:

1. Normal Mode:

a. Push power button

2. USB Recovery Mode:

a. Plug in a properly partitioned USB drive that has a proper image

b. Push vol-down button when powering on the device. Hold the vol button down until ASUS logo is shown. Note that if you do this correctly, you'll get to a screen where you select language. If you don't see this, maybe you have problem with your USB drive or the image on it.

3. Recovery Mode:

a. You can only go here if you have a proper installed OS

b. Push power button

c. Wait until you get to login screen

d. Press and hold shift, click power button icon, and select restart

(3) is useful if you have a working operating system and also a recovery image specific to it. In this guide, we'll be using (2) to restore the device.

Steps:

1. Download the image that apatcas generously provided:

http://www.alexpatcas.com/vivort.rar

2. Prepare a recovery USB drive

a. The image from (1) is 4.2GB, so you need at least that much of space

b. Format and partition your drive as GPT. If you're using Linux, I suggest using GParted. Instruction is as follow:

i. Open GParted

ii. Select your USB drive from the dropdown on top right.

iii. Select "Device" -> "Create partition table" -> "GPT"

iv. Format the partition to FAT32 filesystem

c. Extract and paste the image from (1) onto the drive. You should see "boot", "sources", and "efi" directories on the top-level directory.

3. Prepare partitioning script to be run on your TF600T "USB Recovery Mode"

i. Save the script below as "X:\recovery.txt", where X is your USB drive

4. Enter "USB Recovery Mode" on your TF600T

5. Select English, select "Troubleshoot", select "Advanced", and select "Command Prompt"

6. Type: "diskpart"

7. On diskpart terminal, type: "list volume".

8. Remember the letter for your USB drive, on this tutorial, we'll refer to this as "X".

9. Quit from diskpart terminal by pressing "ctrl+c"

10. Format and partition your TF600T properly. Type: "diskpart /s X:\recovery.txt" (Note: replace "X" with your USB drive letter)

11. Flash the image on your USB drive onto your TF600T:

i. Type: "dism /apply-image /imagefile:X:\sources\install.wim /index:1 /applydir:W:"

(Note: replace "X" with your USB drive letter)

ii. Grab a cup of coffee or two while waiting.

12. Fix your TF600T partition table

i. Type: BOOTREC /FIXMBR

ii. Type: BOOTREC /FIXBOOT

iii. Type: BOOTREC /SCANOS

iv. Type: BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD

v. Type: bcdboot w:\windows

13. Exit the command prompt. Type: "exit"

14. Boot to windows normally! Enjoy!

Let me know if you have any question.

To give credits to the original posters, I'm quoting their original posts: