Windows 7: Restore Vista from Windows 7

Hi all, I was looking over the forum but didn't find anyone having the problem I'm going on with.

I have a HP laptop, it came with Windows Vista and it have a restore partition which I used a couple of time to restore my OS when working under Vista.

But the problem is that I have install Windows 7 and it working fine but now I want to switch back to vista for the prusose of sending back my laptop to HP to repair my dvd drive and didn't make any restore dvd...(yeah I know)

Now when I try to use the system managment within win 7 it doesn't see the recovery on D: drive and if I go by the boot sequence with F11 it start up the Win 7 tools and still doesn't detect the factory restore file on D:

Could anyone advise how it would be possible to restore ?

Thank you in advance

Do you have a vista disk? think you will need to boot from that
If your dvd drive is knackered then you would need to put the disk on usb stick and boot from that, vista recovery may then see your backup partition

I have a Dell that came with the restore partition, nine out of ten times that partition is disabled with a new OS. I know I would be out of luck in your situation, without a restore DVD. I truly think that there is not much that you can do, sorry. You could try what pauy mentioned, but I think that the drive is gone.

When you upgraded do you delete the Windows.Old folder?

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Why do you feel it's necessary to switch back to Vista before returning the laptop to HP?

Control Panel>Folder Options>View tab>Show hidden files then browse Recovery Partition for an ISO to mount using Power ISO.

Sometimes marking the Recov partition active in Disk Mgmt can trigger it after restart. But you may need access to the Windows 7 Repair console to mark in inactive if it fails to trigger recovery and won't restart into Windows 7. See if you have the Repair console available by tapping F8 at bootup.

You can borrow any Vista DVD, reinstall to activate with your OEM license. If it isn't your version, you can unlock all versions by extracting files to a small partition at the end of your HD, removing the ei.cfg file in Sources, then run Setup to overwrite the Windows 7 partition.

Finally, ask Tech Support if you must factory recover to be serviced under Warranty. If they insist, you may need to have them send you the Recov disks.

Just to reiterate , the easiest thing is to mark the recovery partition Active.

It will probably start the recovery program straight away.

You can mark it Active in Disk Management - rt click the recovery and Mark Active.

Restart.

It is a good idea to have a bootable partition manager to hand.

There is free one here - Download Partition Wizard Boot Disc .iso NOW

Free Download Partition Wizard

His OD failed and is being replaced under warranty, Si, so he has no way to reset Recov partition inactive if it won't start Recov. Unless Acer has placed the "Repair My Computer" console at F8 during bootup. Check to be sure first.

Is there another way he can get Windows 7 back without DVD/CD if marking Recov active doesn't run Recovery?

Just mark the 7 system partition Active again - use the command prompt from 7 sys rec options, or PW , or Gparted , etc. It's not hard.

Obviously, he should make a bootable usb and check it works first, though.

Probably best to create a Windows 7 installer from flash using this tutorial: USB Windows 7 Installation Key Drive - Create Then you not only have the needed Repair console but can later clean reinstall Windows 7 for a much better install.

Or you can use above method to write just the Repair Console to flash: Download Windows 7 System Recovery Discs — The NeoSmart Files

Mark the Recov partition active in Disk Management, or if necessary boot into Windows 7 or Repair flash drives, click through to Recovery Tools list and open a Command Line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (for Recov partition HD)
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION (for Recov Partition)
ACTIVE
EXIT

If recovery partition is not booted upon restart, boot back into the Windows 7 Repair console to run the same Commands but replace ACTIVE with INACTIVE.