I Have been fighting this for months, Don not say 1 more word of apology. The KB3000850 update that installed with Windows Update caused my Asus K55a notebook's Windows 8.1 Pro operating system to become corrupt. I purchased the machine from best buy over a year ago, sealed from the factory with Windows 8.0 pre-installed on it. As you know most retailers do not include a copy of the operating system restore media in the packaging anymore. I updated the machine to windows 8.1 through the windows app store after doing all previously automatically recommended updates through Windows Update. Through my college I purchased the Windows 8.1 Pro Pack upgrade. Everything worked well very well and I expected no less from these products from Microsoft and Asus. Then the day came that I chose to install all recommended updates as I do frequently Including KB3000850. I had to restart after the updates and the system would not boot into windows due to files being corrupted or missing. I was shocked but, I did create multiple backups of the system onto a 1.5Tb Western Digital external hard drive. Now mind you I have been an Information Technology professional for quite a while now. I am very familiar with the Windows Recovery Environment, or WinRE. The does not see any restore images available. BTW I tried refresh and reset from different stored points and none worked. In WinRE it does not auto detect any images, or allow you to browse to another drive for them, only to network locations, and I do not have any of those. At this point my problem became your problem, and started costing You money. I called Microsoft Support. I would speak to a technician after stressful long waits I am told ultimately by the technician that I must buy a new product key. First of all this is wrong I should not have to spend my money as a direct result to a Microsoft pushed update. So I called back, and called back and... no result. I spent well over 10 hours trying to get you to tell me how to resolve my problem. While this is going on I have already started my semester in college taking classes for a degree in Information Technology, computer courses. I find on my own that I can create restore media for windows from another computer for Windows 8.1 Pro. Computer lab at school, you need Administrator privileges to create the usb restore media! After spending many more hours trying to find a computer the entire time you are paying your tech guys on the phone to not help me. I have to ask the department head of computer sciences to let me have him help me make restore media using his computer being that it was the only one with the proper privileges. Windows 8.1 Pro usb restore media I am able to boot and try to repair the damage that your update did. There is no option to repair the operating system, only a full restore., At this point I'm livid, being a major proponent of Microsoft in many ways for over a decade. I lose all of the information I have on my system due to the necessary restore. I rebuild, log in with my Microsoft account, do all of my updates and then 2 weeks in I get hit with a blue screen that says you need to activate Windows.... ... I call and I call, no help other than I can pay for Premium Support and they can help me get the key from "within the operating system" which makes no sense because if it was there there shouldn't be a problem unless I am being extorted into just giving up and buying new from MS. Another individual told me it was within the bios or the motherboard..... You are well over 20 man hours lost paying your phone techs. I call Asus direct to get it from them and I spend 5-6 hours on the phone calling, then calling again to get someone who can tell me how to do this and even with the serial number, I am told the only option is to RMA. I try the forums... nothing except for this:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-system/no-boot-after-installing-windows-update-kb3000850/96531400-ec27-4afb-b2a8-3fa9792ad49b
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-windows_update/no-boot-after-installing-windows-update-kb3000850/fdcfcd18-66cb-4575-98a0-15334260b9e8
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-system/asus-k55a-multiple-partitions-access-to-restore/867eb864-65fb-4804-8528-cbcd71ee374a
and here I am. The WinRE and backup/restore tools within the program there is no way to restore the backups that I made sucessfully on that external hard drive. Now this all could have been resolved by you just giving me a copy of Windows 8.1 for the one you corrupted! I am still in disbelieve of all that you have allowed me to go through even as I write this. I have health conditions and I have been hospitalized in the time since this whole thing began due to stress. Please I'm begging you to resolve this immediately or I will do everything in my power to make it known how Microsoft handled business with me and if I can pursue justice through legal action I will.
Sincerely,
JCC