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On Windows 7 I usually enter into Windows Recovery partition by using F7 and choosing it to recovery mode. Now on Windows 8 F7, F8 or any of FXX keys works on booting (even on Full Reboot).

How do I access Windows 8 boot options or Windows 8 Recovery and how I should proceed to recovery my Windows 8 into factory image (when present)?

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  • F7 and a recovery partition would be setup by the OEM. If you blew away/changed/upgraded your OEM Windows install, F7 probably isn't going to work anymore. :) Oct 30, 2012 at 20:02

1 Answer 1

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In Windows 8 they dropped the use of the F8 key to access the boot menu.

Now to access such menu you can hold Shift before you press Restart (so already within Windows) and you'll be presented with it after the reboot. Another way is to press "Restart now" at the general PC settings:

General PC settings

As usual, Windows automatically shows the menu when it detects an error and can't continue booting anyway.

Boot menu:

Boot menu

Troubleshoot:

Troubleshoot menu

Advanced options:

Advanced options menu

You can find more information about it in a TechSpot article or this blog post at MSDN.

To proceed with a recovery process once there go to the troubleshoot menu and select to either refresh or reset the machine. You can find some more information about the process in this other question's answer.

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  • If Windows won't boot, then it should detect the issue, and restart into the repair partition automatically.
    – jpaugh
    Sep 1, 2017 at 19:27

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