Windows only 
I received a tip from Mark over the weekend that NeoSmart had posted their Windows 7 recovery disc ISO images just like they did when Vista was released. These discs are extremely handy to have especially if you didn’t receive any installation media with your new computer, which is a common occurrence when purchasing from a majority of manufacturers including Dell and HP.
Why are these recovery discs useful? They include the most important part of what you can find on the Windows 7 installation disc if you purchase a retail copy of the OS. These recovery discs strip away everything except for the recovery portion, which brings the size down to about 5% of what the normal disc weighs in at. With it you’ll able to do things like restore your computer from a backup, repair the startup, roll back to a System Restore point, run diagnostics, open the command prompt, and more.
I’ve used the Vista Recovery Disc numerous times to fix my own machine when the startup has become corrupt (namely because of installing and uninstalling several different Linux distributions). All I have to do is throw in the CD/DVD, run the Startup Repair, and Windows always manages to diagnose and fix the problem within minutes (example). This is something Microsoft got right in Vista… it’s a recovery tool that shockingly works, and the same functionality has been carried over into Windows 7.
So what do you have to do? Well, you simply download the ISO image below, burn it to a disc, boot your computer with it, and begin the recovery process. Here’s the 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of the recovery tool that I’ve uploaded to MediaFire so that you don’t have to download them through a torrent:
- Windows 7 Recovery Disc 32-bit (x86) – 144MB
- Windows 7 Recovery Disc 64-bit (x64) – 166MB
If you want to download it through a torrent jump on over to NeoSmart where you’ll find the links you need. Thanks again to Mark for the tip!
Ahhh…I wish I had known about the Vista one 3 weeks back, see what happens when you out of the Windows loop for 4+ years. I had to work on my father’s boss’ laptop, but since I didn’t have a Vista disc to restore and he didn’t have the disc that came with the laptop ultimately we choose to install Ubuntu on it as he only uses Firefox. This is good to know, thanks.
i had a “vista” partition on the drive and no vista software disk with a new pc,this is paid for but they wont let you have one at zoostorm,or from reading any pc manufacturer.its not on just to rely on that partition.
they send out a recovery disk but thats about it for problems.
On my newer laptop i have an hidden recovery partition with OEM Vista. Boot menu and it can be activated.
I recently installed a fresh “7″ because i hated my Vista experience (7 has only crashed twice in about 2 months, while Vista crashed a lot) but decided to keep that hidden partition untouched.
I also made some OEM backup recovery dvds when i bought it, but as i decided to install a fresh copy of vista on that moment (XP would work but it had some driver issues) without crapware and bloatware, i installed a clean system.
I am not much supporter on recovery for an working operating system. Sure its more easy and fast, but there’s nothing more cool than a new fresh copy of windows. Sure it takes a bunch of time tweaking and installing additional software, but as you finish it … brand new fresh look.
Anyway, for emergency situations i believe recovery mode is awesome, to install an os … not for me.
Good post, thumbs up.
Thanks for this. Insurance is good to have.