Windows 7: A couple backup and restore questions

The Story:
On my gf's computer (HP Mini 110) I updated the OS from 7 Starter to 7 Professional back in January. No problems until 2 days ago when her touchpad stopped working. I then called HP customer service to send it in to get it fixed and they told me that there is a driver compatibility issue with the 2 versions and said that it must be put back to starter in order for the warranty to stand (upgrading or downgrading OS or OS versions arent covered under the warranty)

What I need to do (I mostly need confirmation):
I am going to use the restore partition from HP to restore back to starter. However the pc does not have a cd drive. I have a 300GB external that I plan to backup the whole image to. My concerns are:

• when I restore back to starter, do I have to go through activation all over again? Not a problem though cause key is on bottom of PC
• Once I send back to HP and they return the PC will have starter, Do I just do a restore and point to the image on the external drive???
• If that is the correct way, do I then again have to worry about activating my 7 Professional again? I just dont want to have to search the whole house trying to find where I wrote the key. (Yes it is a legal copy)

I just would like to know what to expect when I am going though this. My gf would kill me if I lost all of her documents from the past 7 years that she meticulously has organized.

Basically what I need is to temporarily switch to starter, and within the starter, do a restore back to Professional. If there needs to be a clarification, please let me know.

I have never used restore so sorry for any ignorance.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

If the touchpad driver has worked previously in Pro then it will work again in Pro.

I would recommend you try a few basic trouble shooting techniques:

• Restart the trackpad using the FN shortcuts on the F keys (often FN+F7)
• If possible roll back the touchpad driver (Roll Back Troublesome Device Drivers in Windows Vista - How-To Geek)
• Update the driver (Update a driver for hardware that isn't working properly)
• Try doing a system restore to before the problem started (System Recovery Options)

If none of these work then that is when I would consider sending your PC off to be fixed (and if you put it back to starter the driver might start to work again anyway, if I've understood you correctly).

I hope this comes in helpful and if none of this works I'll be more than happy to help you get your PC back in Warranty.

Oli

Thank you for your time and help.

It's not an issue of whether or not it will work with professional because it has been working for the past 5 months. One day (last monday) it just stopped working. That is why I think it is a hardware issue which HP will not look at until the pc is restored to 7 Starter. I will try some of your recommendations. I had already tried updating the driver to no avail. Also the right and left click buttons dont work too. I probbaly should have stated that before.

If possible I would like someone to confirm that what I am trying to do is going to work like I plan on it. make a full system restore image, revert back to starter, then use that same image to revert again back to professional. And if someone can give me info on the activation too. That would be nice.

Activation won't be a problem, I'm on my fourth clean install and have had no problems with activation.

In terms of creating a system image you shouldn't have a problem if you follow the tutorial at How to Create a System Image in Windows 7 - How-To Geek.

Then you can simply install HB however you want and send it off to HP.

Oli

The problem that you will face is that you need a recovery CD (which you burn from the imaging program) in order to pull the image back in. Without a CD reader that is a no go. Maybe a USB stick could do the same, but I have not yet studied that option. And use any imaging program, but NOT the Windows 7 imaging. That works only half of the time.

Due to the delicate political situation, (we don't want to upset the G/F, do we ), I would also make a manual data backup of the documents, onto the external drive.

Also before you restore the HB use something like SIW to obtain the key information so if the worst happens you will have it to hand.

SIW | System Information for Windows by Gabriel Topala

Alright. So when making the backup use a program like Acronis or Macrium?

When you are referring to Windows 7 Imaging program are you referring to the creation of the image or burning of the image?? I do not plan on burning a cd. I am hoping that I can just save the file to my external drive and then load it from my external drive.

When you say you have no problems with your activation, does that mean you have to re-enter your serial key???

I have had to reenter my serial code once out of those various clean installs but it activated without a problem. If you do have a problem activating just give Microsoft a call and they'll sort it out or you could use the automated phone activation service which I used on my laptop while my Internet was down, it worked perfectly .

Oli

Thanks barman for the program reference... works perfectly!!!

You cannot just "load" an image. An image is a dumb bit string. You need a recovery program (on a CD) to pull the image in. I recommend you study the problem some further and watch my video tutorial.