Can I boot from a CD if OS drive dies?

bobland · 16 May 2014

I recently had a scare when my SSD boot disk became unrecognizable by the motherboard. I tried to reboot the system and got errors (didn't make sense to me). I went into the BIOS and found that SATA1 was "not detected." I put the W7 Pro disk in the DVD. It wanted to install files or do a Repair. Since the drive was "down" I opted to cancel so I wouldn't end up overwriting my data disks.

I shut down the computer and thought for a minute. I tried rebooting and the OS came up. I ran Belarc and it said my SMART was healthy.

In the event the drive was truly a doorstop I would have liked to boot the system from a DVD, put a new drive in and do a full disk restore (I take a full disk image every two weeks). Thing is, I don't have a way to boot the system in such a case and I don't keep empty SATA disks lying around, tho I do have an older VelociRaptor boot disk but its ATA and I don't think I have any ATA connectors on the mobo.

So, is it possible to make this DVD backup? If so, how would I go about it?

Thanks,
Burt

ignatzatsonic · 16 May 2014

Hmmm...

In your first paragraph, you say you have a "Windows 7 Pro disk".

You later state "I take a full disk image every two weeks".

Can't you boot from the Pro disc, locate your image file on some other drive, and restore?

I have no idea about the nuances of Windows Backup. I'm guessing that's what you use. I assume you boot from a Windows disk, navigate to your image on drive X, and restore. That's how other imaging programs work.

But I assume I'm misunderstanding you?

jeepmann4x4 · 16 May 2014

What program are you using to do your Images? Where are you saving these Images?

bobland · 16 May 2014

I use Macrium to run the backups.

I think what I'm trying to do is not possible. I want to create a Windows 7 boot disk on DVD/CD so I can boot my system in the event of a OS disk failure. Perhaps, I'm getting confused with Linux because one can do that with most distributions.

ignatzatsonic · 16 May 2014

How would you currently restore a Macrium image? I assume it's crossed your mind.

AddRAM · 16 May 2014

No, You can`t run windows 7 off a disc.

When you create an image, it asks you where you want to save the image, whether on a hard drive or dvd`s.

You then restore the image from that.

Your post is a bit confusing. :)

jeepmann4x4 · 16 May 2014

How about something like this....
MACRIUM REFLECT - Create Bootable Rescue USB Drive - Windows 7 Help Forums:

You could just burn the ISO to cd/dvd and boot from it if you dont want to make a flash drive.

EDIT: I think you might be talking about a "live CD" if thats the case then no.

gregrocker · 17 May 2014

The disk you want is the Macrium Boot disk linked above. It will restore the image you've saved elsewhere, never on the same drive.

There are boot disk options to rescue your files from unbootable Win7, as well as everything else that can be done to revive it in Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start

bigmck · 17 May 2014

bobland said:

I recently had a scare when my SSD boot disk became unrecognizable by the motherboard. I tried to reboot the system and got errors (didn't make sense to me). I went into the BIOS and found that SATA1 was "not detected." I put the W7 Pro disk in the DVD. It wanted to install files or do a Repair. Since the drive was "down" I opted to cancel so I wouldn't end up overwriting my data disks.

This is why you should put your Data Files on a different partition than the OS.