Solved Will a system image work to restore win 7 that was an upgrade from xp?

[dmcrose]

I have a computer that is about 5-6 years old. It is a Tosh Satellite, and it came with XP. About 3 years ago, I had a guy upgrade the os to win 7 ultimate. I knew at the time that doing that was difficult, but this guy is talented and I knew that the computer only needed to work for another year or two before I bought a new one. lol

Now I have two new computers, one for home and one for work. Both have w7 home on them. The old computer is still working great, so I want to give it to a friend who has no computer and can't afford one. But I want to remove my data. There isn't really much on it that is sensitive, but I would still like to reformat it at least. The problem is that I do not have system recovery disks for the win 7. So I have three options, or more if someone can suggest something:
1) Use the recovery disks that came with the computer and restore it to factory, and xp.

2) Create a recovery image and try to reformat the disk with that, but my concerns are that this was a win7 upgrade from xp. Would that matter?

3)Can I create recovery disks or a recovery image on my new computer that has win 7 home, and format the old computer HD with them?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Brink]

Hello dmcrose, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Doing a system image recovery will restore your complete computer back to the exact same state it was in when you created the system image.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[dmcrose]

Thanks for the welcome and the advice!

So I just need to create the system image, put it on dvd(s) turn the computer off, then turn it back on and hold down c or F10? I have read that I should hold down one or the other.

Is this an easy thing to do? I have loaded pretty simple linux os on to virtul pcs, but I am not smart enough to load windows 7 on to a HD. lol Do I need help for this or will recovering be easier? I think I used a recovery disk on that computer once, but I had to have help fixing an issue with that computer first. I can't remember exactly what needed to be changed.

 

[Brink]

It's pretty easy to do, but the links in my post above can give you full details on how to do both of those.

DVDs are not as reliable though. You would be better off saving the system image to a separate HDD than what you have included in the system image.

 

[dmcrose]

I have an external HD that I can save it to. I will read through your links.

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome. If you have any questions, then please feel free to ask.