I would use the old wipe it clean method as you will be forced to do so when the preview drops live anyhow. Once back at 8.0 you can move forward when live drops without losing your setup, this is not true is you go from 8.1 preview to 8.1 live. Or at least that's what I have read around the web. Now would be as good a time as any to go back if resetting your device is not something you are already used to, now would be the time to get used to it. You can invest a good deal of time creating an image and storing on it on a removable drive and using software to push it back when things go bad, but I have found from experience its just easier to live lean in the device and be prepared to hold the SHIFT key down and select restart and follow the prompts to factory reset from there.
I used GHOST and Acronis each have their issues related to the UEFI and the Surface Pro and all that and each is surmountable but each is rather tedious and not at all recommended. In most cases it is literally easier to just Factory reset the device, and its just baked right into the OS so why not just give up and reset? Anyway I returned my Pro recently and so my opinion may be colored by my experience with the device.
MS was pretty cool about letting me return it though it took a couple months to complete the deal, they were generally pretty helpful about the whole thing if I did have to hound that store manager that kept telling their online support people he needed my contact information for over a month. I finally had to get his number and called him directly. After that the return processed pretty fast. He needed me to tell him how I wanted to credits processed but did nothing to contact me in the mean time. Were it not for me calling the online support and emailing them 15 times asking for his number and then calling him directly I would most likely still be waiting for his call. Anyway, just throw in the towel and factory reset. I can tell you from experience (5 factory resets through 3 failed Aggregator Firmware updates), get used to factory resets, the sooner you do the happier you will be with the device. Think of it like an iPad, hard resets happen. I am still not certain that the device is ready for consumers. It had 'wonky' behavior from the start, updates leaving me stuck at the 'Please wait while we finish a system update' screen for hours, then having to power cycle to find the update failed and the system was barely functioning... getting into the bios and turning off secure boots was one of the most unreliable experiences I have ever encountered and I have been working in the IT field for almost 20 years now and remember the more painful days before universal USB boot support etc... This device made me feel young again in that aspect. It was not one thing that made me want to throw it out the window but rather a whole host of little things that built up over time, the failed firmware updates, the wonky tile performance, the utter failure of the Windows Metro Apps with Secure boot disabled, no dock support so that hooking it up to my sweet dell S2340T monitor felt like I was reanimating Frankenstein not docking a machine with the Power the USB and the HDMI cable, a dock would have gone a long way to making me like this one more. Couple all that with the state windows 8 is currently in until 8.1 actually drops (8.1 was not available when I decided to return my device)... Anyway the device was not for me.
