Recovery Disks

[eddie57]

My friends laptop is having issues with windows update downloads and updates, troubleshooting, etc. She never made recovery disks and my questions is should I make the recovery disks the way the unit is running or order a new set of recovery disks from the vendor (Dell)?

Thanks

EG

 

[davidireland]

You can go ahead and burn the manufacturer's recovery disks. They are not a result of your current system state (or they wouldn't make a whole lot of sense anyways) but will instead contain a factory default image.

 

[eddie57]

Windows Repair

You can go ahead and burn the manufacturer's recovery disks. They are not a result of your current system state (or they wouldn't make a whole lot of sense anyways) but will instead contain a factory default image.

Once I create the rec-disks, can i use them to complete a Windows Repair? Thanks

EG

 

[davidireland]

Once I create the rec-disks, can i use them to complete a Windows Repair? Thanks

EG

Well you could definitely use them to erase and reinstall windows, but as far as REPAIR goes, that would depend on the manufacturer. I believe with HP/Compaq you can but I'm not sure about the others.

However, you can enter repair mode without disks on Vista/Win 7 machines by hitting F8 several times after the manufacturer/BIOS screen disappears. After doing so, select Repair Your Computer from the list that is rendered. This will give you basic recovery options including startup repair, system restore and a command prompt. Many manufacturers allow you to reimage back to factory defaults from this screen as well, without the need for disks.

These options will likely not help you with update problems or other weird glitches. You would either need to do a clean install or have a retail copy of Vista/7 (which ever you have installed) which you can use to do an 'upgrade' on top of your existing install which keeps user data and reinstalls the OS (which would likely fix windows corruption, driver issues, etc..).

 

[eddie57]

Thanks

Well you could definitely use them to erase and reinstall windows, but as far as REPAIR goes, that would depend on the manufacturer. I believe with HP/Compaq you can but I'm not sure about the others.

However, you can enter repair mode without disks on Vista/Win 7 machines by hitting F8 several times after the manufacturer/BIOS screen disappears. After doing so, select Repair Your Computer from the list that is rendered. This will give you basic recovery options including startup repair, system restore and a command prompt. Many manufacturers allow you to reimage back to factory defaults from this screen as well, without the need for disks.

These options will likely not help you with update problems or other weird glitches. You would either need to do a clean install or have a retail copy of Vista/7 (which ever you have installed) which you can use to do an 'upgrade' on top of your existing install which keeps user data and reinstalls the OS (which would likely fix windows corruption, driver issues, etc..).

Thanks for the detailed reply. That helps a lot. Have a good day!