Tips on total crash/restore from imager and backup?

Hey guys, be patient with me as I am pushing 60 and a linux user. My wife's laptop is running windows 7 home ultimate; I think it is 64bit.

Yesterday she started getting a legitimate windows system popup that said backup your hard drive else hell commeth and the world will end. Well not really but close. I told her not to shut it down but leave as is. I came home and ran the suggested backup and also a system repair CD to boot from. Lord I don't remember where I stored the instructions .

So, After the above chores I ran sfc/scannow but that utility found no errors or inconsistencies.
I am no running CHKDSK /r /f and notices so far it has re-parched 96 records and processed 942.

When rebooting the pc, if I get the popup windows "window" saying I have the same hard-drive error, could it be a false positive, how is this information collected and where and how is it triggered?T\

Thanks ALOT in advance for any help.

p.s. I have the files and system image saved on an external harddrive and a repair CD build. We do not have the original windows install CD

Hello relaxing and welcome to Seven Forums. I'd use the first tutorial (Step 2) to determine the Windows edition and whether its 32 bit or 64 bit. Once you determine the edition and bit-ness you can get a legal installation disk by using the link in the third warning in the second tutorial (the link for Microsoft: Windows 7 Direct Download Links.) The download will be an ISO. You can save the ISO file to desktop and then burn it to a DVD.

System Type - 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)

Repair Install

I'd also suggest including as much info about the laptop as possible and filling out the system specs for the laptop. It will probably help to determine if the manufacturer has any diagnostic tools, etc that can help isolate any problems such as a failing hard drive.

System Info - See Your System Specs

It will also be helpful to know a little more about the system image. Was it created using the native Windows 7 imaging tool? A different imaging software like Macrium Reflect? One of my concerns is whether or not the laptop has a failing hard drive. If the hard drive is going bad, restoring a system image may not solve any problems.

Thanks for the reply marsmimar. They system Win7 Home Edition 64bit 4gig of ram, Toshiba L655 Laptop w/ writable dvd drive.

All the windows system checks came back with no errors only the "disk is failing" GUI popup once the desktop loads.

I picked up a new HD yesterday, they are cheap, and installed it. I tried to use the Repair disk along with the external Segate I backed up the files and image to. The boot system sees the image on external drive and does attempt to load it when I am prompted however it fails withing 2 seconds. I can mount the external drive and run a list of files etc...

I though one option would be just to load the original distribution back on the drive then try to restore to the image.

Thanks for the links, if I read you right one is the original distro? The Windows key is stuck to the bottom of the machine.


What do you think? I do have a external drive box at work but its a long drive, I was thinking about just cloning the old internal drive in question and skip the windows backup/restore stuff if necessary.

Thanks for your helps and tips.

Well that dance did not do a lot of good. I installed the new Windows disto, was prompted and restored the backup. Man is this screwed up. Is there NO WAY windows can simply make it as it was even if you save an image and backup? It is totally F... ed up. Just a new distro with user files, thank goodness but no drivers restored, no registry setting restored no previous software restored. Is there come kind of microsoft secrete around this mess?