Need to create a recovery disc

Alamshar · Jul 30, 2011

Hi, recently Vista failed to start on boot-up and I had to do a restore to partition one to get it going. Needless to say this is a lot of work as I lost all of my settings.
Vista (32) came pre-installed on my laptop so I don't have the disc. On windows 7 it seems easy enough to create a recovery disk from "backup and restore" but I don't see the same option in Vista. I have read in forums ways to do it but these were pre SP1 and I have SP2 installed. I want to know if there is a way to do it through Vista. Cheers

Brink · Jul 30, 2011

Hello Alamshar,

The recovery disc created through "Backup and Restore" is not the same as your OEM factory recovery disc. The recovery disc through "Backup and Restore" can only be used to repair Vista with, and cannot install/reinstall Vista. The OEM factory recovery disc, can only be used to do a clean install of Vista with.

If you wanted to create the OEM factory recovery disc instead, then please post back with what brand your computer is and if it's a laptop or desktop. I'll be happy to see if I may be able to find and post back the instructions for how.

Alamshar · Jul 30, 2011

Hi Brink

Thanks for the reply. My laptop is an Asus M51Sn. I have the recovery dvd for Vista that came with it. My concern is that if I use this I will still lose all my settings. The error that I had before (which I think I fixed) required a restore to partition 1. Maybe the recovery dvd would have worked. I wanted to know if I could make one with the current settings and apps that I have installed.

Brink · Jul 30, 2011

Yes, the OEM Vista recovery DVD that came with your computer would have formatted the drive and reinstalled Vista back to the way it was when you took the laptop out of the box.

A recovery disc created through "Backup and Restore" would have only let you boot to the System Recovery Options screen to be able to do a system restore or other option. However, a system restore would have restored your system files and programs back to the way they were at the time and date of the selected restore point. Any program that was installed after that restore point would have been removed.

I think you might be referring to creating a system image backup instead. This will clone your HDD as it is right now, and allow you to do a system image recovery to restore the HDD back to how it was when the image was created if needed later. However, Windows Complete PC Backup is only available in the Vista Enterprise, Ultimate, and Business editions. You might consider using something like the free program Macrium Reflect or Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 (Advanced) Free to create one with instead.

Need to create a recovery disc

Alamshar

My Computer

System One

Brink

My Computers

System One System Two