Sooner or later no matter what operating system you are using, you will have to completely wipe your data and start over. With past operating systems, it usually meant you 
either needed the supplied restore disk or you had to have a supplied restore partition on the computer and you had to hope and pray it would work. With Windows XP, you could do a repair install that kept all your settings, programs and documents if you had the original Windows XP operating system disc that came with the computer.
Windows 8 offers a built in tool to recover your computer in the event of a disaster. You will not need a disc and the tool is built into every copy of Windows 8. With Windows 8 it is no longer called a reformat, they made it sound a little less ominous and called it a system refresh. A Windows 8 refresh will return your computer back to a usable state and save some of your user settings and data. It is always best to have a full backup before performing a system refresh. The Windows 8 restore/refresh has 2 options. The first is called a refresh and keeps some of your data and files while the second option will remove everything and completely reinstall the operating system. This is a great option if you are selling or giving your computer way to a friend or relative.
With all the bad hype about Windows 8, this is one feature that I think Microsoft actually got right. No longer will you have to search drawer after drawer to try to find that restore disk that you are not even sure if you actually ever had it in the first place. I will explain the steps that are needed to gain access to this feature if you are having issues with the operation of your computer.
The first step is to slide your mouse to the right side of the screen to display the charms bar. From here, click on the gear icon (the settings link). Next, click on change PC settings. Next, you want to click on General in the PC Settings box. You will then be presented with two options, “Refresh your PC without affecting your files” and Remove everything and reinstall Windows”. If you simply want to “refresh” the operating system to repair glitches or errors, use the Refresh Your PC option. As you follow the prompts, Windows will tell you what will be deleted and what will be saved.
One great feature of this refresh option is that your old files are all saved in a folder called Windows Old. If you find something missing after the refresh, you will probably see it in this folder.
If Windows 8 fails to start, you will have to access the Advanced Boot Options in order to perform the refresh. Usually, this option will automatically come up after 2 consecutive boot failures. With Windows 8, the traditional F8 key is not always a reliable way to get into advanced boot options. On a slower computer, you can try Shift Plus F8 to open the advanced boot options. You have to be really fast on a fast booting machine. Frankly, it is sometimes a catch 22 trying to get this option when Windows will not boot. The most reliable way is to start your PC with the supplied disk. Once in the advanced boot options area, you will find the Refresh and Remove options to help restore your PC back to a running state.
As you can see, if you need to restore your computer and it still boots into Windows, your run will be much easier then if the system will not boot at all. If you do not have a disk you will have to repeatably try the Shift plus F8 key option in order to get in. Happy refreshing!!
Article by Joe Z, Protected Do Not Copy
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