No recovery disk.....How to boot to dos to format hard drive

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  1. Posts : 4
    Windows 7 Home
       #1

    No recovery disk.....How to boot to dos to format hard drive


    Well....I guess we will see if anybody in the Forums has a solution. This is a complicated lengthy explanation so bare with me.

    1) My wonderful son borrowed my wife's brand new Windows 7 laptop as his was on the blink. After discovering that her laptop was not very fast he chose to remove the hard drive and install it in his laptop. (KEY NOTE: yes, the nice fella neglected to make a Recovery Disk prior to doing this.) He then reformatted the drive and installed his version of Windows 7.

    2) Then he purchased himself a new i7 laptop at Christmas. At that point he decided to give mom's laptop back to her. He took the hard drive back out of his old machine and installed it back into mom's laptop. At that point he did nothing with respect to starting it to ensure that it worked.

    3) Now I am stuck with a laptop that won't boot up as the computer obviously doesn't recognize the hard drive due to the Windows 7 install from the son's computer.

    I've tried repairs, recovery, safe mode boots....and anything else that comes to mind but to no avail. I would like to get to a command prompt so that I can format (fdisk) the hard drive and try and start from scratch. I have found no help to date that allows me to do that either.

    Your assistance would be much appreciated.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 3,371
    W10 Pro desktop, W11 laptop, W11 Pro tablet (all 64-bit)
       #2

    Do you have a Win 7 install disk? If you use an install disk to boot from, you will be able to partition and format the disk as part of the install process.

    Another option would be to download one of the many Linux distros which would partition/format the disk as part of it's installation.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 2,726
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
       #3

    Hiya and welcome to the forums :)
    Have a looky over here pal Clean Install Windows 7
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 7,730
    Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-Bit
       #4
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 4
    Windows 7 Home
    Thread Starter
       #5

    strollin - unfortunately not. these days the computer manufacturers don't supply the os disks when you purchase. That sucks. I will try the download that PooMan and Seavixen recommend and see how that goes. Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen....will keep you posted.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 7,730
    Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-Bit
       #6

    OK, we look forward to a positive outcome.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 13,576
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       #7

    Follow Seavixens advice and you`ll be up and running within 2 hours. All you need is 1 blank dvd, a computer with a dvd burner and ImgBurn installed.

    The Official ImgBurn Website

    Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River « My Digital Life

    Use your key to activate Windows.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 7,055
    Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
       #8

    tornado26tiger said:
    strollin - unfortunately not. these days the computer manufacturers don't supply the os disks when you purchase. ....
    I am just curious to know who is the manufacturer and the model.

    One of my relatives bought a DELL lappie and proceeded to create additional partitions. In the process he mucked it up. His lappie was covered with on-site service warranty. A Dell guy came to his residence, put in a new harddrive partitioned it the way the user wanted, reinstalled Windows and left. Four or five years down the lane, he is still using that lappie.( I do not work for DELL or any other OEM)

    I was about to direct you to contact the OEM and check whether you can get the Recovery CDs/OEM Reinstall disk. Most of them do send one or the other, may be for a fee. So try.

    Yes, you can always download the right ISO, clean install and activate using the COA-SLP key that you can find on the machine, provided it is from a Royalty OEM. I only hope your COA key on the sticker is intact and readable. Otherwise you will be in a soup.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 7,730
    Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-Bit
       #9

    I recently bought a Dell XPS 8300 and for an extra £5 Dell provided me with Windows 7 Home Premium DVD, a driver DVD and copies of Adobe Photoshop Elements 9/Adobe Premiere Elements 9 that were pre-installed on the hard drive - all OEM versions obviously.

    It's certainly worth contacting Dell as Jumanji suggests. They'll most likely send you a Windows DVD if you ask and they probably won't even charge you for it.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 11,408
    ME/XP/Vista/Win7
       #10

    You can order OEM Recovery disks from your OEM manufacturer's website.

       Information
    We always assume you have made your Recovery Disks using the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Media Creator app the first day you had your new PC.
    & made the Startup Repair CD.
    startup repair disc-create


    Did you make the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Disks?
      My Computer


 
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