Windows 7: Restoring to factory settings without a disk drive.

First of all I want to apologise if I have posted this in the wrong place, I am really not computer savvy!

I recently bought a netbook for use at University. My University recommended and supplied an antivirus software, which prevented my computer from accessing the internet. After phoning the anti virus support, they said it wasn't their problem and after phoning the university, they told me that they needed to restore the computer to factory setting (which I suspected all along)



After booting the advanced boot menu on start up, I first tried starting in the last known good configuration, that didn't help, but then it told me to boot with the reset CD in the disk drive. I have the disk, however on my netbook, I don't have a disk drive!

I know I could buy an external disk drive, but I don't really want to spend more money than I already have!

Any help will be much appreciated!

You could use someone else's computer to put that Rescue DVD onto a USB thumb drive and use that.

Hi,

I am not sure what system model you are using, however If your system is DELL, OEM and hard drive is never formatted before and if your system has a “DELL factory Image”, then you can follow the below mentioned URL which will help you in restoring your system to factory settings:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&docid=DSN_62A668E1C3A0857AE040AE0AB8E12942&isLegacy=true

If your system is not Dell, then try to check with your computer manufacturer if your computer has a factory image similar like Dell or not. If not, then you can try making a bootable USB for Operating System installation.

Remember that usually, when you do a restore like this, you will lose all files already on the laptop. So ensure you have made some kind of back-up before starting the recovery process.


Let me know if that worked for you

Firstly, thank you for your help.

I am using a dell laptop, however when I am in advanced boot mode it does not have a "repair your computer" option, so that doesn't help. It is a discontinued Dell (the inspiron duo) so it is possible it was made before this feature?

I have also moved my disk onto an empty memory stick - however whenever I try to boot from it, the screen just reads "missing operating system"

and I have already backed up all my files

Hi,

Glad to hear from you, I am always there to help people on this forum.

It seems like the USB drive is not correctly created as Windows 7 “Bootable” USB drive.
Kindly confirm if you followed the same steps to create a Bootable USB drive on the URL mentioned below:
http://www.poweriso.com/tutorials/how-to-make-Windows 7-bootable-usb-drive.htm

Why does your Univ IT say to reinstall or run Recovery to make the provided AV work? This is not a standard workaround for your problem.

Does your netbook have a Recovery partition on it's HD. Look in Disk Mgmt to see. It may be run like this: Dell Restoring Your Computer´s Software to the Factory Settings

Otherwise use the tool Dell provided to write to flash stick the Recovery DVD.

Most Dell Recovery DVD's are clean-copy Windows 7 Reinstallation DVD's with some Dell branding and activation baked in. You can achieve the same clean reinstall using the flash installer and steps provided in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

That has worked perfectly! Thank you so much!

One question, is there anything special I need to do to re install the drivers?

How drivers are handled in Windows 7 is detailed in Steps 9 and 10 of Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

If you ran Factory Recovery it should have supplied all drivers, but as with a Clean Reinstall there will be newer ones arriving during several rounds of Updates, under Optional Updates. So keep installing both Important and Optional Updates until they are exhausted.

Set Updates to download and install Automaticallly, treat Recommended Updates the same as Important.

Hi,

Glad to hear that issue is fixed now. As suggested by "gregrocker", drivers will be installed automatically. However, all the system specific drivers are available on : Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

Let me know if any more help required. Have a great day.

Why didn`t you just remove the offending software, no reason to do all this.