Couple of questions regarding recovery, please read.

Hi guys new to the forum

For information for you to better help, I have a Samsung R780-JT01 laptop. Its a great notebook so far. i5 M460 2.53Ghz with turbo boost up to 2.88Ghz. 4 Gigs of RAM. 640G HDD. And an ATI 1 gig dedicated graphics card. Now, onto the questions, and thank you in advance, are concerned with Samsung Recovery Solution 4 and Windows 7 back up.

1. Older operating systems, such as XP came with an installation dvd. Windows 7 does not. I was told I had to make my own. Well what I did was created a complete back of Drive C: in Samsung Recovery Solution 4 which says it creates an image of C. It says that it backs up the currant status of the drive and if for say a virus or something wentwrong, i can recover the current state of drive c from the image created. It was a total of i believe 27 Gigs. are these dvds what i would use to reinstall windows if something goes completely wrong? Can I make a windows 7 installation disc?

2. If that is what i need to reinstall windows, or what ever you may tell me i need to do/make to reinstall windows, If i buy a new hard drive for my laptop, what do i use to reinstall the OS on the new hard drive? i wont have to buy another copy of windows do i?

3. I deleted all but most recent windows restore points, did this also delete the image of windows 7 that came with the laptop that Recovery Solution 4 uses to restore the computer the original state of purchase?

Hello emnasty,

1) Yes, you can use those dvds to restore the computer to factory default state i.e. what it was when you unboxed it. Different OEM have slightly different recovery solutions but its best to assume that all user data will be wiped out when you do that, so backup critical stuff before you launch recovery.

You cant make a regular win7 install disk, you can borrow a dvd from a friend or maybe download one off the web (if you can find a clean copy) as long as its the same edition that came preinstalled.

2) If you swap hard drives, the recovery partition will be lost. Hopefully, the recovery dvds will work although this can get tricky. I dont have experience with a samsung laptop so you'll have to wait for help from someone who has. In the absence of info, I would go by the presumption that the recovery dvds may act up. So, best to image the system drive using Macrium or Acronis.

The other option is to do a clean install of win7 from a borrowed or downloaded dvd (same edition), then activate online using the COA key on the computer or, if that doesnt work, by calling MS. This will be a plain vanilla win7 install, although win7 does have working drivers for most devices. You'll need to install any missing drivers and all your apps.

3) The win7 image that came with the laptop is in the hidden recovery partition. Deleting earlier restore points will not affect that image.

hmm I dont know anyone that has a windows 7 disc. Is there anyway to create one using that hidden image? I just have bad luck with hard drives and I want to be safe this time on what i need to do to install it to a new hard drive. All my data (files, media, docs, etc..) backed up. My main concern is to install windows 7 on the new hard drive and be able to activate it. I have an activation code on the bottom of the notebook.

Thanks for the response by the way.

You're welcome, the only thing you can create from that hidden image is a set of recovery dvds. When you restore from those, the install will be auto-activated. You can look around on the internet for a clean iso but nobody here can help you on that or vouch for its cleanliness or authenticity.

Ive been an XP guy all along thats why im not 100% sure about 7 system recovery. Im very familiar with the torrent business if thats what you mean by finding a clean iso. But what do you mean by that? clean as in non tampered with? just a plain windows 7 home premium iso? and i would use my own activation key?

i also thought about what you said using the hiddne partition. how do i make a recovery dvd from that?

emnasty600 said:

i also thought about what you said using the hiddne partition. how do i make a recovery dvd from that?

Click to expand...

The regular way using Samsung's Recovery solution.

SAMSUNG's Digital World - Support

oh ive done this already. can this be used to reinstall 7 on a new hard ddrive?

I dont know. Thats what i said in my first post. Its a little different for each oem, the best place to ask this question is in the samsung community or call samsung support.

emnasty600 said:

2. If that is what i need to reinstall windows, or what ever you may tell me i need to do/make to reinstall windows, If i buy a new hard drive for my laptop, what do i use to reinstall the OS on the new hard drive? i wont have to buy another copy of windows do i?

Click to expand...

I would make an image of your recovery partition using Macrium Reflect and reimage it to a new HDD (if you wanted). It has worked successfully for me with an Acer recovery partition when I replaced the HDD on the same Acer PC. Use your current imaging to replace the rest.