Computer Hope
Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: CrashBX on March 01, 2015, 07:31:58 AM
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Greetings everybody. I have a problem with an Windows installation on my tablet which I don't know how to fix but have a feeling it's something obvious which I missed. So here's the story:
The problem
I recently bought a Modecom FreeTAB 8010 x86 tablet and it was all fine and dandy for the first few days but eventually I started running out of space on the system drive. I noticed that a huge portion of my internal memory was used up by the recovery partition (almost 6gb). In order to try to make the best use of the already measly 16gb SSD that's inside the tablet, I opened partition wizard from Hiren's boot CD and marked the recovery partition for deletion. Everything was set up and ready to be deleted so I told recovery wizard to restart the system and do the procedure. Windows shut down normally and after a short UEFI boot screen, windows started booting again but this time instead of the usual 10-15 second boot time, it took it almost 2 minutes and it didn't even boot. After around two minutes it crashed with a BSOD and a message saying: "CRITICAL_SERVICE_FAILED". Note that it probably didn't collect any error info since the screen shows up only for barely 3 seconds after restarting again and going in a bootloop.
(https://i.imgur.com/OUawx9R.png)
Please ignore the purple spots on the image, those are just reflections of something else.
How I tried to fix it
I first tried to boot into a live linux pen drive but couldn't since this tablet's motherboard doesn't support BIOS at all, no legacy mode, no nothing - it's UEFI only.
Since it was UEFI only I was searching for an UEFI compatible rescue distro and eventually just burned Ubuntu 14.04 iso to a pen drive. It didn't boot.
In a desperate attempt to even see what was the situation with the disk, I downloaded the untouched Windows 8.1 iso from Microsoft and burned that to a pen drive and suprisingly that worked fine and I managed to enter windows installation. From there I entered the system repair options. Of course none of them helped. It's not necessary to get into detail about this but the first two "system refresh" options didn't work since they required me to boot into recovery from the original working system. Startup recovery didn't do jack and I tried the usual /fixmbr and /rebuildbcd which also didn't work since this is an UEFI based system not BIOS one. NOTE: I checked the disk with diskpart and the original Windows and recovery partitions were still there, everything seemed to be fine. I eventually tried to go into safe mode but it also crashed every time I tried so that option is out. I then remembered that I backed up my recovery partition to a pen drive. "This is my way out!" I thought but it wasn't. Booting into recovery didn't help at all, you can see why in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw64TD0hgls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw64TD0hgls)
Closure
So this is why I come to you guys. Something has gone wrong but I have no idea why. Reinstalling is pretty much not an option since I wasn't provided with a serial key upon buying this tablet and I don't even know what internal devices it uses so finding the drivers would be a gigantic pain. If I missed some important information about the tablet or the installation please point it out to me and I'll add it. Also you don't need to tell me that deleting the recovery partition was an intensely stupid idea since I later found out myself that Windows used it to store compressed parts of the system on it and deleting it would pretty much render the entire installation useless. Any help on this issue is very appriciated and big thanks to everybody who takes their time to assist me on this issue.
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It might show no text because its failing to mount the SSD. Everything up to that point is coming from your Thumbdrive. When it then calls out to the SSD there is no response and so no text shown I am guessing. I have seen similar issues to this with some windows installs in the past on desktops when its an older system in which I have missing SATA controller driver etc and so the HDD is completely missing to the OS installation.
At this point if no important data is on it, I'd use a tool to delete all partitions/volumes on the SSD so its completely clean. Then try the thumb drive again to see if it then is able to mount the SSD and install further. :-\
If this isnt the case with the SSD not responding correctly to the Thumbdrive recovery media then it could be a corrupt recovery media in which you can contact the mfr of the computer tablet to have them send you the recovery media set for free if under warranty or a small fee if out of warranty etc.
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It might show no text because its failing to mount the SSD. Everything up to that point is coming from your Thumbdrive. When it then calls out to the SSD there is no response and so no text shown I am guessing. I have seen similar issues to this with some windows installs in the past on desktops when its an older system in which I have missing SATA controller driver etc and so the HDD is completely missing to the OS installation.
Personally I don't think it fails to mount the SSD since it does start booting, that means it sees that the Windows installation is on the SSD. Am I missing something here?
At this point if no important data is on it, I'd use a tool to delete all partitions/volumes on the SSD so its completely clean. Then try the thumb drive again to see if it then is able to mount the SSD and install further. :-\
That's my last resort since then I would lose the genuine Windows that came with the tablet. No serial was provided with the tablet upon buying it.
If this isnt the case with the SSD not responding correctly to the Thumbdrive recovery media then it could be a corrupt recovery media in which you can contact the mfr of the computer tablet to have them send you the recovery media set for free if under warranty or a small fee if out of warranty etc.
I have already sent them an email asking for the serial key or some other way to activate a new Windows install. When they respond I'll ask a followup question about the recovery. Thanks for the tip!
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Hindsight is 20/20...however deleting the Recovery Partition was a bad idea...
I would contact the manuf. and see if they will ship you a Factory Restore DVD...
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Hindsight is 20/20...however deleting the Recovery Partition was a bad idea...
I know but I hoped I could restore it from the pen drive. Obviously that's not the case here. ::)
I would contact the manuf. and see if they will ship you a Factory Restore DVD...
Will do, thanks. I already sent them the email asking about the serial key so I'll ask them when and if they reply.
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Usually the DVD's are a small charge...+shipping.
Best of Luck.
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Usually the DVD's are a small charge...+shipping.
Best of Luck.
Thank you.
While I'm waiting for the response from Modecom, does anyone have an idea what happened here or how to fix it? When I checked my tablet's SSD with diskpart, both partitions were there and I didn't see any errors. Both of them are there and occupying space, I don't think partition magic even did anything.
(https://i.imgur.com/X9zYymH.png)
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I'd say you wonked the partition table itself somehow...did you interrupt the process or lose power when running it ? ?
Th e partition sizes aren't even close to matching up in size...
It'll likely require a wipe and factory restore to get it back...
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I'd say you wonked the partition table itself somehow...did you interrupt the process or lose power when running it ? ?
No, it was connected to the charger while I was doing that. Did I interrupt the process? I don't think there was any process to begin with. I opened up partition magic, marked the recovery partition for deletion and extended my primary partition to the full size. When I clicked "apply", partition magic asked me to restart the tablet since the recovery partition was in use and it couldn't be deleted. I clicked "yes", allowing it to restart. Windows shut down normally but couldn't boot anymore. I don't think partition magic did anything there since the boot sequence looked normal. Shutdown -> UEFI Screen -> Windows boot screen.
Th e partition sizes aren't even close to matching up in size...
Uh, they seem to be... When I add up 8180 and 6500 it equates to 14680 which is pretty close to 14gb (14336mb) shown on the "Size" column of Disk 0.
It'll likely require a wipe and factory restore to get it back...
Ah well, I hope not but we'll see eventually...
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Add up the sizes in table #1...
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Add up the sizes in table #1...
Table #1 (the top table) shows disks currently connected to my tablet.
Disk 0 is my SSD
Disk 1 is the pen drive I used to boot the Windows install from
Disk 2 is the 32gb SD Card I use for storing data
If you're taking about the free space column then yes, it is weird that all my disks have zero free space but the same thing occurs on my main computer and it works completely normally so I just rounded it up as a bug in diskpart.
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Bumping with update.
I sent the mail to Modecom about the recovery, asking them if they could mail me a CD or an .iso file of the recovery and this was their response:
Hello.
We don’t share the system image. In this moment we are not able to help.
Please make a complaint to the seller.
Regards,
Technical Support Team, MODECOM S.A.
So the onboard recovery doesn't work and Modecom isn't planning on sending me one either. Please don't tell me I'm s**t out of luck, guys.
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...I recently bought a Modecom FreeTAB 8010 x86 tablet and it was all fine and dandy for the first few days but eventually I started running out of space on the system drive. I noticed that a huge portion of my internal memory was used up by the recovery partition (almost 6gb). In order to try to make the best use of the already measly 16gb SSD that's inside the tablet, I opened partition wizard from Hiren's boot CD and marked the recovery partition for deletion. ...
I have an Asus T100 Windows tablet. You made a huge error which is not repairable. You should have left the Recovery Partition intact. It's not an SSD, but an eMMC. No 3rd party utilities can manage these. Windows 8.1 w/Bing uses Bit Locker which makes things even worse. Onboard recovery will never work now that you have buggered things up.
I'm afraid you are SOL. Send it back for warranty repair/replacement.
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I have an Asus T100 Windows tablet. You made a huge error which is not repairable. You should have left the Recovery Partition intact. It's not an SSD, but an eMMC. No 3rd party utilities can manage these. Windows 8.1 w/Bing uses Bit Locker which makes things even worse. Onboard recovery will never work now that you have buggered things up.
I'm afraid you are SOL. Send it back for warranty repair/replacement.
Thanks, you pretty much closed the case. That's what I feared the most but I'll still try one thing before sending it in. Here (http://www.howtogeek.com/64600/how-to-recover-windows-and-software-keys-from-a-broken-computer/) I found a way to recover the original serial key from the tablet so I'm planning to recover it using command line in windows recovery and then just reinstall Windows with that key this weekend. Would that work?
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It has to be able to boot to Windows to use that tool...i was under the impression it doesn't.
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It has to be able to boot to Windows to use that tool...i was under the impression it doesn't.
He says I just need to pull the config folder from system32 using either a live linux distro or a windows recovery from an installation CD. Later, I can just extract the serial from the config folder on any computer with a working windows installation and ProduKey.
If you don’t have any SATA openings and don’t have a SATA docking station you can recover the files with a live Linux USB drive too. Use whatever distribution you feel comfortable with because you just need to copy a folder to the drive.
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He says I just need to pull the config folder from system32 using either a live linux distro or a windows recovery from an installation CD. Later, I can just extract the serial from the config folder on any computer with a working windows installation and ProduKey.
If you could do that, wouldn't you be able to just use the Recovery Partition?
Any Windows 8.1 install you have won't accept the PID Win8.1 w/Bing.
You would need the Win8.1 w/Bing install which is only available to manufacturers.
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If you could do that, wouldn't you be able to just use the Recovery Partition?
No, because the recovery on the tablet's memory seems to be corrupted (Problem with no text mentioned in OP)
The recovery I would be using would be one that Windows 8.1 installers have, not the one on board.
You probably know that at the beginning of a Win installation there's a "Repair your computer" button on the lower left corner, that's the recovery I'm thinking of.
Any Windows 8.1 install you have won't accept the PID Win8.1 w/Bing.
You would need the Win8.1 w/Bing install which is only available to manufacturers.
I found Win8.1 with Bing images on *cough*that one torrent site*cough* but I don't know if it's illegal to use them.
The plan was to download that disc image and to install it using the legitimate key I recovered, how does that sound?
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We will not "cough" cough" assist with that...sorry.
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We will not "cough" cough" assist with that...sorry.
No problem, that is to be expected. I'll report the results when I try this out.
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(https://i.imgur.com/Eewk5lI.jpg)
BAM! It's working again. So this is what I've done:
First, I flashed a fresh installation ISO from Microsoft to my pen drive. After booting into that installation I went into the "Repair your computer" section of the install. From there I accessed the file system using CMD and copied the entire "config" folder from C:\Windows\System32\ and also the entire "DriverStore" folder also from C:\Windows\System32\ because I'll need the drivers later. After the copying has finished I went over to my main computer, plugged the pen drive in and restored my legitimate product key using ProduKey from Nirsoft. Then I downloaded the leaked CoreConnected (Win8.1 w/ Bing) image and flashed it on my pen drive. I then wiped the eMMC drive on the tablet and reinstalled Windows from the ground up. Before anything I activated Windows using the extracted product key from before and it worked completely fine as you can see from the picture above. Of course Windows did not detect almost anything when it comes to drivers. This is where the DriverStore folder comes in handy. I just went over all of the entries with the little exclamation mark in device manager and updated their drivers from my pen drive. This is the point I'm at now and the only things not working now are my camera and the acceleration sensor although both are there in the device manager.
So the only problem now is Windows not detecting the existing camera and acceleration sensor, any idea what could be the problem with this? For the sakes of spreading information, the accelerometer is a Kionix KXCJ9 SPB and camera is named just "Camera Sensor GC2235".
NOTE: Modecom's driver availability for this tabled is below horrible and if I haven't backed up the drivers folder before, this thing would be one expensive paperweight.
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Good job getting that working. These tablets are a whole new ballgame.
BTW, Win10 will likely be a free upgrade. Some are even using the Technical Preview to replace Win8.1 on the tablet.
I wouldn't recommend it, unless you couldn't find the Win8,1/Bing. Win10 should be out sometime this year.
Sensors could use Intel drivers, mine do.
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect
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Microsoft changed how they do the PID for Win8, i.e. no more label.
The key is now embedded in BIOS and can be retrieved automatically during the activation process in Windows 8. Theoretically, you will never be asked for a key to active your machine. But to have the process run smoothly, you will need the right Windows 8 installation edition that matches the one stored in BIOS. Or, you will be prompted to type in the right product key.
http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-retrieve-windows-8-oem-product-key-from-bios/
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Good job getting that working. These tablets are a whole new ballgame.
BTW, Win10 will likely be a free upgrade. Some are even using the Technical Preview to replace Win8.1 on the tablet.
I wouldn't recommend it, unless you couldn't find the Win8,1/Bing. Win10 should be out sometime this year.
Sensors could use Intel drivers, mine do.
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect
Well you're lucky because my accelerometer is Kionix and my camera doesn't even have a brand. I tried the Intel driver utility you linked me to but it just reports my iGPU driver, it doesn't find anything else on the system.
Microsoft changed how they do the PID for Win8, i.e. no more label.
The key is now embedded in BIOS and can be retrieved automatically during the activation process in Windows 8. Theoretically, you will never be asked for a key to active your machine. But to have the process run smoothly, you will need the right Windows 8 installation edition that matches the one stored in BIOS. Or, you will be prompted to type in the right product key.
http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-retrieve-windows-8-oem-product-key-from-bios/
Thanks for the info, that's good to know.
So now, does anyone have a hunch or an idea what's happening with the accelerometer or the camera? Both are installed but it seems Windows doesn't detect them. Sensor Monitoring Service is enabled.
(https://i.imgur.com/Q3qAF1V.png)
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Your Device Manager says those are working.
Haven't used the cameras on mine, bit Win8.1 has a camera app on the Start Screen.
Win8.1 also controls the accelerometer. Screen Resolution has check box for auto-rotate.
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Your Device Manager says those are working.
Haven't used the cameras on mine, bit Win8.1 has a camera app on the Start Screen.
Hah, that's the first thing I tried and it says: "To get started, connect a camera." so it obviously doesn't detect the connected camera :/
Win8.1 also controls the accelerometer. Screen Resolution has check box for auto-rotate.
Been there, tried that. In my case there is no check box for auto rotate in the Screen Resolution window. A place where it should be is just empty space.
Note: I tried activating the auto-rotate from registry but it was already activated there. Also, the brightness controller in the charms bar doesn't have the auto rotate symbol.
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Don't know why those features aren't working.
Modecom has almost no online support, except for manuals & pictures.
They say: "All the latest drivers can be downloaded from this website."
http://www.modecom.eu/support/
Try drivers/software for another model in the 8000 series.
http://www.modecom.eu/ftp_files/support/?sciezka=/ENG/Tablets
Maybe not much, all I see is USB drivers.
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Your tablet may also have been setup using this:
http://www.howtogeek.com/196416/wimboot-explained-how-windows-can-now-fit-on-a-tiny-16-gb-drive/
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I'm thinkin the drivers are included in the initial install...but the manuf. was too lazy to make them available.
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Sorry for the slow response, got caught up in schoolwork.
Don't know why those features aren't working.
Modecom has almost no online support, except for manuals & pictures.
They say: "All the latest drivers can be downloaded from this website."
http://www.modecom.eu/support/
Try drivers/software for another model in the 8000 series.
http://www.modecom.eu/ftp_files/support/?sciezka=/ENG/Tablets
Maybe not much, all I see is USB drivers.
You are correct, they haven't provided me with anything, my tablet has absolutely no drivers available and other ones are mostly Android tablets with only ADB drivers available. In the mail they told me to just send it in for repairs. I guess this is a trend now, break a small cog in a complex machine and you have to send it in instead of fixing it yourself, wonderful...
Your tablet may also have been setup using this:
http://www.howtogeek.com/196416/wimboot-explained-how-windows-can-now-fit-on-a-tiny-16-gb-drive/
Yes, I have established that myself in the first post, that's why everything went downhill when I fiddled with the recovery partition.
I'm thinkin the drivers are included in the initial install...but the manuf. was too lazy to make them available.
That's absolutely correct and companies like that make me really angry, I've seen s**t like this happen on multiple occasions with random obscure hardware I encountered over the years.
I'll now try fiddling with the drivers in hopes that I'll maybe fix something. If you guys get an idea, please drop it here.
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UPDATE:
I got the camera working and I have no idea how. I just uninstalled the drivers for both of the cameras you see in the image few posts above and then reinstalled them. NOW, you'd think I could do the same for the accelerometer but no, Windows still doesn't want to recognize it. I've tried universal HID drivers, I've tried some other general accelerometer drivers that ship with Windows, I've tried all of the Kionix drivers I could find and I still can't see the automatic orientation option in the screen resolution panel.
Is there a way to force Windows to rescan available sensors on the system or something? This is my first time dealing with sensors and I don't really know how Windows handles these kinds of devices.
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BUMP!
Problem with the accelerometer has been pretty much resolved here (http://www.eightforums.com/tablet-touch/64183-cant-enable-auto-rotate-although-win-recognizes-sensor.html)!
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hello, can anybody share drivers for modecom 8010 tablet pls? ;D
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How were you able to boot from pen drive?
I have modecom tablet freetab 8025 IPS 1B and i'm not able to boot from usb. I can plug a keyboard in usb hub and at power on press ESC, then i can go into boot menu and there are two options: normal boot and some shell access. I have no option for usb pen. By the way it has only 14gb space, and i need to install win10pro, is it possible?