Windows 7 - Heal thyself!

[darkassain]

Call me naive, but I’ve always thought that it should be possible for your average PC user to get themselves out of a PC jam without having to call on the Geek Squad (or their friendly neighborhood uber-geek). Windows 7 has in place mechanisms to help even the most basic of users get their PC back from one of the worst situations that they can find themselves in - a system that won’t boot.

I’ve already looked at some of Windows 7’s troubleshooting tools but the other day I had a chance to use it first hand after a power supply died and corrupted the OS. The system tried rebooting and failed. On the next reboot the OS flipped into Windows Error Recovery mode and offered the Startup Repair option.

via http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3256

finally some media attention on this very useful addition that will save dollars on "simple" fixes......

 

[Surfer25]

Cool stuff... doesnt Vista have a similar option to launch a repair if the system failed to start properly last time??

 

[darkassain]

Cool stuff... doesnt Vista have a similar option to launch a repair if the system failed to start properly last time??

the thing is this is not from windows OS you boot from.....

this is from outside the windows OS called windows PE (pre-installation environment) which is the same as the boot from the vista or 7 disc which you are able to have a GUI and have basic drivers in order to install or repair your computer.....

what they did is they made part of installation (remember when it says in the vista disc under the bottom "repair my computer")

this is now on the machine itself meaning no need to search for the disc itself to make a repair....

even better when you might have a OEM cd and all you can do is restore to the OEM image....

 

[Joe]

I have also used this same "self healing" process. It worked very smoothly. I was glad to see that they made the software work smarter.

 

[garysgold]

I too have used it. Worked like a charm.

Gary

 

[Surfer25]

Thanks for the explanation makes sense now.

 

[echrada]

Thanks I have used it as well but a very good post.

 

[napilopez]

Would this be that 200 mb partition I keep hearing seven creates? And does it do so in previous builds? I'm still running 6956 so I'm not sure =P

 

[darkassain]

yes I can confirm that it was early as 6801
so its a good thing that you generally can't acess it until you need it

 

[SnapCount]

So it goes into "Heal" mode automatically if it fails to boot first time around?

Is there a shortcut key to do it manually?

 

[zrtom]

F8 will bring you to the Recovery Environment on some W7 builds. On others, the WinRE is not installed, apparently. With Vista, you can always automate the Recovery Environment with the winre.wim and boot.sdi files using the setautofailover.cmd command. It's best to locate them in a partition other than the OS partition and that may be what W7 does. Dell has used the automated Recovery Environment since Vista and uses it to contain a link to the factory image restore utility. Custom Recovery Environment options can be made by mounting the winre.wim using the Windows Automated Installation Kit, then adding the extras.