Solved Repair F8 Repair Your Computer Option

[derekimo]

Ah. I didn't know the COA key was immortal lol. I already have all the drivers backed up on my external anyway & SlimDrivers is my friend lol. The beauty of this machine however is the only pre-installed stuffs are Zune, Skype 5.3, Bing Bar & Microsoft Security Essentials so, it never bothered me much to have to remove them. Of which Skype i use anyway...But, you're still saying, third party vendors can still spy on us? Ouch. I actually already have a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit disc. The ISO admittedly was taken from a torrent. It seems to work great only I'm afraid Microsoft may now be able to tell the copy is fraud if it in fact is not a copy of an official Microsoft Windows 7 disc. Do you think you'll be able to tell me if the copy is legit or not?

Forget about that ISO, you never know what is crawling inside that.

As long as you have a COA sticker for a version of windows you can use that to reinstall the same version on your computer.

Everything you need to know is here,

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164

Including the official source to download a legit ISO.

 

[Night AoX]

Well the issue is I don't have a blank disc handy to burn any new ISOs lol. Man, this sucks. Looks like I gotta wait to get more discs.

 

[derekimo]

Well the issue is I don't have a blank disc handy to burn any new ISOs lol. Man, this sucks. Looks like I gotta wait to get more discs.

Do you have a 4Gb flash drive?

You can install with that too, also mentioned in the tutorial above.

 

[Night AoX]

I do have an external hard drive & I tried running an image backup but, the options didn't list all of the partitions as I thought it said it would do...

 

[Night AoX]

Also, have any idea what's going on with these recovery discs?

 

[derekimo]

I do have an external hard drive & I tried running an image backup but, the options didn't list all of the partitions as I thought it said it would do...

That won't work for a clean install.

Your image sounds like you didn't include all the partitions when you made it.

Where did you get the recovery discs? Are you trying to boot from them?

 

[Night AoX]

Well the clean install, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about creating a System Image backup. The instructions say that you save a System Image instead of creating Recovery discs but, the result will be the same. Or did I read it wrong?

I'm attaching what the utility lists...It only lists C: & PQSERVICE. There's also System Reserve & Arcade that are partitions on the drive. I thought the tutorial said you can choose all the partitions.

The discs I'm referring to are Recovery discs I made from another Acer I have. They're RW DVDs so, I should be able to just erase them but, they're not even loading up. It's like the things don't even spin when I close the door. I didn't try to boot from them but, I shouldn't have to right? Or can Recovery discs not be loaded from within Windows OS?

 

[Night AoX]

Sorry. I thought the thing uploaded...

 

[Night AoX]

& it still didn't -_-

 

[derekimo]

What is this post for then?

Ah. I didn't know the COA key was immortal lol. I already have all the drivers backed up on my external anyway & SlimDrivers is my friend lol. The beauty of this machine however is the only pre-installed stuffs are Zune, Skype 5.3, Bing Bar & Microsoft Security Essentials so, it never bothered me much to have to remove them. Of which Skype i use anyway...But, you're still saying, third party vendors can still spy on us? Ouch. I actually already have a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit disc. The ISO admittedly was taken from a torrent. It seems to work great only I'm afraid Microsoft may now be able to tell the copy is fraud if it in fact is not a copy of an official Microsoft Windows 7 disc. Do you think you'll be able to tell me if the copy is legit or not?

Well the clean install, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about creating a System Image backup. The instructions say that you save a System Image instead of creating Recovery discs but, the result will be the same. Or did I read it wrong?

I'm attaching what the utility lists...It only lists C: & PQSERVICE. There's also System Reserve & Arcade that are partitions on the drive. I thought the tutorial said you can choose all the partitions.

The discs I'm referring to are Recovery discs I made from another Acer I have. They're RW DVDs so, I should be able to just erase them but, they're not even loading up. It's like the things don't even spin when I close the door. I didn't try to boot from them but, I shouldn't have to right? Or can Recovery discs not be loaded from within Windows OS?

So are you trying to...

1. Image?
2. Use your recovery discs?
3. Clean Install?

You are talking about all three.

Your DVD drive may not read DVD-RW, have you checked to make sure it does?

 

[Night AoX]

Well in general I'm talking about all 3 but, specifically I'm trying to start with System Image.

The recovery discs, I'm trying to erase them so I can make new ones with this computer.

It does read DVD-RW. My copy of Windows 7 I got from that torrent is burned to a DVD-RW & it reads that just fine.

 

[Night AoX]

What is your opimiom on EaseUS Todo Backup Free 4.5?

Free download EaseUS Todo Backup Freeware to complete backup & restore Windows system - EaseUS Todo Backup Free

Will this properly clone the HD? I do have an external HD handy.

 

[derekimo]

OK, if you want an image first, lets focus on that.

How are you trying to create the image?

 

[derekimo]

What is your opimiom on EaseUS Todo Backup Free 4.5?

Free download EaseUS Todo Backup Freeware to complete backup & restore Windows system - EaseUS Todo Backup Free

Will this properly clone the HD? I do have an external HD handy.

I don't have an opinion on that, haven't used it.

I have and do use Macrium.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

 

[Night AoX]

I was trying to use Windows 7 System Image utility but, that doesn't create an image for all of the partitions...

I think disk cloning may be my best bet...I never used Macrium but, I have used Todo. It's just been a while since I last used it. Once I'm done transferring these files over, I'll try cloning & seeing if I can boot using the cloned drive...Sadly I'm talking hundreds of GBs. This can take a while lol.

 

[derekimo]

Well, just take it one step at a time, stay on track.

Let's get this step done first.

 

[Night AoX]

Yeah. I'm taking it easy.

 

[gregrocker]

If you want to clone or save an image backup of the factory preinstall in addition to the Recovery disks then I'd use free Macrium or the Acronis premium imaging app which comes free when any WD or Seagate HD is in the mix.

Macrium - Image your system
WD Acronis free cloning app
Seagate Acronis cloning free util

 

[Night AoX]

I actually already began that process with Todo...No point in turning back now. If it doesn't work then, I'll retry with your software.

 

[sgage]

You're lucky this is all the corruption GRUB caused since we see cases where it makes Win7 irreparable. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

In 15 years of active use of Linux dual booted with Windows, with I don't know how many dozens/hundreds of Linux installs, I have never seen a case where GRUB (or LILO before it) caused Windows to be irreparable.