Scenario - single laptop that needs a full wipe and reload. It came loaded with windows 8.1 from the retailer - [OS: Win8.1 SprUP 64Bit w/ Bing Language: NH] It's heavily compromised with malware. 1. The restore partition, can it no longer be trusted? What is the consensus on this - are there special protections for the restore partition in case of such a scenario? 2. If I use the official MS media creation tool - on this heavily infected machine - to download a windows 8.1 (with bing) install disc - how can I check that there is no contamination of the DVD that it creates? I'm concerned that malware could intercept the process and change/infect the burnt image as it is being processed. Want to keep the image pure. I have never used the media creation tool - so I am unsure whether it provides a hash/md5/sha1 key by which I can check the DVD image integrity on another machine. Is it possible to use the media creation tool on another clean PC (desktop windows 8.1 pro) to download and burn an official installation DVD for that laptop? Thanks. Bakersfield
I think you'd be better off doing it on another machine that isn't infected. Or you could download an ISO, compare the hashs and burn to dvd, then wipe the machine.
Is it possible to use media creator on another machine (non 8.1 with bing), yet get the correct image for the bing laptop?