Windows 7 - System Recovery Options

**Brink**

How to Boot to the System Recovery Options in Windows 7

Information

This will show you how to boot to the System Recovery Options screen to select the Startup Repair, System Restore, Complete PC Restore, Memory Diagnostic Tool, or Command Prompt option to use on Windows 7.

Note

The System Recovery Options menu is on the Windows 7 installation disc. If your computer manufacturer (OEM) has preinstalled recovery options, the menu might also be installed on your hard disk as a recovery partition. If your computer does not include the System Recovery Options menu, your computer manufacturer (OEM) might have customized or replaced the tool. Check the information that came with your computer or go to the manufacturer's website.

METHOD ONE

Using a OEM Recovery Partition

NOTE: This is if your computer did not come with a Windows 7 installation DVD, and has pre-installed recovery options (recovery partition) instead.

1. Start or Restart the computer.

2. Boot into the Advanced Boot Options screen.
A) Select Repair your computer and press Enter.

3. Select your keyboard language preferences and click on Next. (See screeshot below).

4. Select your user name and type in the password, and then click on OK.

5. Go to step 6 in METHOD TWO below.

METHOD TWO

Using a Windows 7 Installation Disc

1. Insert the Windows 7 installation disc or System Repair Disc into the CD/DVD drive and restart the computer.
WARNING: Check to make sure that you set the BIOS to have the CD or DVD drive listed first in the boot order.

2. If prompted, press any key to boot from the Windows 7 installation DVD. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You will only have about 8 seconds to press this key.

3. Select your language preferences and click on Next. (See screeshot below).

4. Click on Repair your computer. (See screenshot below)

5. Select which operating system you want to restore and the click on Next. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If Windows 7 is not listed here, or it is blank, then it is ok. Click on Next anyway.

6. Select the system recovery option you want to do. (See screenshot below)
Startup Repair

System Restore

System Image Recovery

Windows Memory Diagnostic

Command Prompt

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

**darkassain** · 11-24-2008

lol shawn
nice +1

" This is if your computer did not come with a Windows 7 installation DVD, and has pre-installed recovery options (recovery partition) instead."

**Brink** · 11-24-2008

LOL, now they just have to release Windows 7 for a OEM recovery partition.

Demono · 06-08-2009

Windows 7 recovery is definitely improved over previous versions, its saved me from reformatting at least twice now. Is there a way to add recovery options directly to the boot menu like you could in XP?

**Brink** · 06-08-2009

Hello Demono,

I do not know, but it wouldn't be very helpful if your computer doesn't boot though.

**karlsnooks** · 06-08-2009

Brink, Another option, which I use, is to put WinRE.Wim on a bootable PE memory stick. The procedure is highly similar to making a minimum PE USB stick. If it willl be of interest, I'll send a couple of .docx files giving a detailed, step-by-step. I've not read up on how to attach a file for upload to this forum and whether such is even permitted. Karl

Brink, Here goes an attempt at including two .docx attachments.

Brink,
Looks like that didn't work. Have saved as .doc files and will try to attach them.
Karl

**Brink** · 06-08-2009

Hello Karl,

Thank you. I'll take a look at it.

**cplindsay** · 11-01-2009

Okay, here's my issue, my install went south about 4 days after install, don't know why. Spent all day yesterday going through the various system recovery options described in this site and available via booting up using my windows 7 install disk. No luck. Fairly convinced the boot mgr became corrupt and no matter what I do none of the fixes work. So, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I will have to reinstall. But before I do that I'd like to pull some data off the HD that I had not yet had a chance to back up before the computer crashed. What method would best allow me to simply boot into Windows 7 just to recover the information (documents, file folders, etc.)? Help!

**Brink** · 11-01-2009

Hello Lindsay, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You should be able to do a repair install to fix Windows 7 without losing anything.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

**karlsnooks** · 11-01-2009

Brink's answers are always excellent. Here are a couple of other things which I have tried and which worked. 1. Get hold of a Windows 7 system that works and via the Backup and Restore option of control panel, Create a Recovery CD, boot from the recovery CD, choose applicable option. 2. Boot from a Knoppix CD and copy off your important files before doing a normal Win 7 restore. Knoppix is a Linux-variant which will allow you to access your NTFS Windows 7 partition and files. Just google Knoppix to find latest version. You will find Knoppix easy to use if you have a Linux user with you when you use Knoppix. I strongly advise (I learned the hard way.) that after you're back to a stable system, then do a full and complete backup t9 an external USB drive using the Control Panel Backup and Restore applet. This will create a VHD-format file on the external USB. Using DiskMgmt.msc you can even mount and copy off whatever you want if you only need cetain files. Good luck, Karl