Windows 7: Recieved W7 Recovery Disc, Help.

I had performed an upgrade last week to Windows 7 Pro on 1 of my machines. i recieved a restore disc today. What all can I do with that disc? Can I use it for a clean install, or would I have to load my Vista back on 1st?

Thanks!

Hi and welcome

A restore disk does just that. It has the drivers etc to take a previously saved image and restore it to disk. Im not sure what is on your disk. Is the origianl factory image still there? have you backed it up and have that backed ?

Ken J++

Not sure why you are only receiving the restore disk now if you did the Upgrade last week?

Is your Upgrade running okay, and activated? What is the restore disk exactly?

That's what I want to know? I had upgraded from Vista and asked for a disc as well. That's what they sent me. I don't know what all of the OS I should back up for later troubles? My Toughbook came with XP & Vista restore discs which have the complete OS, and drivers on them. But, how does MS know what drivers I need? I guess I will research some more.

As far as drivers go, the Windows 7 installer is nearly driver-complete. MS funded the partnership (WHQL) with manufacturers to develop Windows 7 drivers, so they have them all first.

Any specialized drivers which don't show up can be found on your model's support downloads page, or by Googling.

You may also be able to find any missing drivers by browsing from Device Manager driver tab to the recov disks you have for Vista, or if that is a Windows 7 recov disk (and not just a clean copy of Windows 7) they may be discoverable on there, too.

Thanks fo the driver info. But I still don't fully understand what I do with it exactly? If I have to do a clean install I won't be able to use this disc the way I understand it. Since this is only an upgrade disc, not the full OS, which I didn'y buy.

Does that make sense?

If your system is setup the way you want it and is running ok, then make an image of your drive, save it to a seperate disc/partition, and store the disc in a safe place..

THANK YOU! Now we are getting somewhere. After I make an image of my drive using Acronis, then when I need to use it, what do I do with that disc MS sent me? That's what I don't get? If I make a complete image I should not even need that disc as I understand it?