Just wondering... I will be upgrading to Windows 7 from Vista and would like to know if it will automatically create it's own recovery partition and replace the one for Vista? My Compaq came pre-installed with a separate recovery partition for Vista. I was wondering, if I need to do a re-installation of Windows 7 in the future at some point, how would I go about it with just the Windows 7 upgrade disk...
Hu zzuebe2, welcome to the forums.
The recovery partition you have & the partition the Se7en sets up are sompletely different.
The Vista recovery is a complete backup of your OS so if you need to you can 'return to factory' settings. This is normally done by selecting a 3rd party 'System Restore' from the Start Menu or during the POST bootup.
The 'recovery' partition for Se7en is in case you need to run a repair install which only (mainly) replaces/reinstalls important operating/system files to the same state as when you first installed.
Installing Se7en over your vista partition will leave the second partition as a (quite frankly) useless drive and still setup a 100MB recovery partition. If you wish to still use the 3rd party 'System Restore' you will need to upgrade from Vista to Se7en do doubt about it. This will, however, completely wipe all data from the drive & set it back to how you first opened the box.
Hope that answers you question :)
Jeff
Thanks Jeff for your timely reply...
So what I understand you to say is that when I upgrade from the upgrade box of Windows 7 that it will have it's own way of recovering.. but what if I want to do a format and re-install Windows 7 in the future because of, let's say a virus or something, would I still be able to do it just from the upgrade package that replaced Vista's recovery partition? Will I have to use the 7 disk or will I be able to do it from a recovery partition for Windows 7... Sorry for the stupid questions but I've never upgraded before... I've always just bought a new pre-built machine...
If you have the 'Upgrade' package then you can only upgrade. If you do happen to (and let's hope you don't) contract a virus then the 'Recovery Partition' will still be safe as it's read only. The 3rd Party 'System Restore' will take you back to 'Factiry Default' which will be Vista then you will have to upgrade again.
THANKS Jeff...
That's exactly the answer I was looking for. You guys are GREAT. I have been looking for this bit of information for over a week now and you gave me a short and precise answer... GREAT job...
And just for safety sake, before you do upgrade to Windows 7, check to see first if your computer maker has included some sort of utility that you can use to backup the recovery partition to DVD - essentially creating a set of recovery disks for the rare instance that the recovery partition becomes corrupted for some reason...
Yeah, thanks for the heads up but I have already made a set of "Recovery Disks" for Vista. I made them just a few days after purchasing my machine. HP will only let you make one (1) set so I have them stored in a safe location...
Great forum here...
Is there a way to say boot the recovery partition, and then upgrade that partion to 7? Therefore if the OS partition tanks its one less step to get back to the current OS?
No. The recovery partition is usually OEM specific, and is created by the manufacturer to "reset" the system to it's factory state. There are no user-accessible tools to allow you to modify this partition.
Bumping posts is not looked upon kindly, but I'll let it pass this time.
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