Win 7 "Reinstall" From Recovery Disc?

[Asparagus]

Just got a new Acer laptop with Win 7 (Home Premium)...no installation disc came with it. It's loaded with tons of bloatware, and I want to reinstall a clean copy of the OS. If I make a recovery disc, can I do a reinstall using it?

I've looked around online and found plenty of websites that say a recovery disc doesn't do a reinstall. But then Microsoft's website says you CAN do a reinstall from a recovery disc. I'm confused.

Just want to make sure I don't end up wiping out my OS...

 

[MStele]

It depends on what the manufacturer provides. Usually if they don't provide any discs, it means you need to burn a set from the included images on the hard drive, preferably BEFORE you have any major problems lol. Just burn the discs and find out whats on them.

 

[postmortemIA]

Yep, I'll do the recovery discs and see if 1st disc has just operating system on it.

This is major BS. OS disc cost about $1, and you have the license. Simply OEMs and Microsoft are doing this to prevent people from having OEM Windows 7 discs. OEMs don't want to support people installing OS on their own, and Microsoft ants to prevent privacy.

some people on Toshiba forum claim that you can use regular retail upgrade discs, use your key, and activate via phone.

Screw them.

 

[pcgeek11]

Yep, I'll do the recovery discs and see if 1st disc has just operating system on it.

This is major BS. OS disc cost about $1, and you have the license. Simply OEMs and Microsoft are doing this to prevent people from having OEM Windows 7 discs. OEMs don't want to support people installing OS on their own, and Microsoft ants to prevent privacy.

some people on Toshiba forum claim that you can use regular retail upgrade discs, use your key, and activate via phone.

Screw them.

The Recovery Disk will install from an Image of the notebook just as it was when you bought it ... Crapware and all.... Sorry for the bad tidings, but it is the truth.

Also the Toshiba Forum folks obviously don't have a clue either as another fact is a "Retail Disk Copy" Will Not Activate or Install with an "OEM Key" which is what is on the COA Sticker Key. Now if you can get your hands on Any Brand OEM Disk you can install with that and then change the key to the one on the COA Sticker on your Notebook then it should activate, but it may need a phone call to MS.

pcgeek11

 

[tcsenter]

Also the Toshiba Forum folks obviously don't have a clue either as another fact is a "Retail Disk Copy" Will Not Activate or Install with an "OEM Key" which is what is on the COA Sticker Key.

There is no OEM or retail media, anymore, since Windows Vista. The posters on Toshiba Forums are referring to preserving/restoring the OEM BIOS preactivation, which can be done using "retail" media (the difference being the license and distribution channel, not the actual installation files).

 

[CurseTheSky]

There is no OEM or retail media, anymore, since Windows Vista. The posters on Toshiba Forums are referring to preserving/restoring the OEM BIOS preactivation, which can be done using "retail" media (the difference being the license and distribution channel, not the actual installation files).

So wait, they're all the same now? I can use a "retail" copy of Windows 7 Home Premium x64 with my notebook's OEM license?

If that's true, that's great news. I hated keeping one of each type of Windows Xp disc (Xp Home OEM, Xp Home Retail, Xp Pro OEM, Xp Pro Retail) just so I could reformat various computers when needed.

 

[RebateMonger]

There is no OEM or retail media, anymore, since Windows Vista. The posters on Toshiba Forums are referring to preserving/restoring the OEM BIOS preactivation, which can be done using "retail" media (the difference being the license and distribution channel, not the actual installation files).

I'm trying to understand what you are saying. I'm hardly an expert on Toshiba OEM Win7 licenses. Heck, I've never even SEEN a prebuilt PC with Windows 7. But I have a difficult time imagining that if I insert a Retail Win7 disk into my old Toshiba PC it'll automatically acquire a Toshiba preactivation Key.

Assuming you aren't saying that, then you are going to have to modify something on the Retail (or generic OEM) Win7 DVD so that it'll know that no Activation is needed when it's installed onto a Toshiba PC. Aren't you? If this wasn't the case, then those 90% of PC owners who have brand-name OEM boxes would only need to borrow a "generic" Win7 disk from their neighbor and could do a full install of Win7 on their PC without buying a license.

 

[Asparagus]

If this wasn't the case, then those 90% of PC owners who have brand-name OEM boxes would only need to borrow a "generic" Win7 disk from their neighbor and could do a full install of Win7 on their PC without buying a license.

I was wondering something *similar* to this myself... As I stated above, my Acer laptop came with Win 7 loaded but no installation discs (it does have a COA sticker). I do own a retail copy of Win 7 (with disc and all) that I'm using on a custom built desktop. Can I use that installation disc on my laptop with the laptop's COA number? I would guess Microsoft has each disc keyed with its own COA to make sure people can't do this...

 

[postmortemIA]

Here's link to Toshiba forum where guy claims he managed to use retail upgrade ISO:
http://laptopforums.toshiba.com/t5/Windows-7/I-want-64-bit/m-p/77880#M3677

also, Dell has this form where it seems they will send windows 7 disc if you had it pre-installed:
http://support.dell.com/support/top.../en/backupcd_form?c=us&cs=RC956926&l=en&s=gen

 

[RebateMonger]

Here's link to Toshiba forum where guy claims he managed to use retail upgrade ISO:
http://laptopforums.toshiba.com/t5/Windows-7/I-want-64-bit/m-p/77880#M3677

also, Dell has this form where it seems they will send windows 7 disc if you had it pre-installed:
http://support.dell.com/support/top.../en/backupcd_form?c=us&cs=RC956926&l=en&s=gen

My read of the first link is folks downloaded a generic ISO of Win7, installed it, and inserted the COA Key from the back of their computer. online Activation was refused by Microsoft, but they were able to do telephone Activation. This is the same as would happen with XP or Vista if you installed with a generic OEM disk and tried to use the COA Key for Activation.

Doing it this way means it's no longer a "Toshiba" install. It'll require re-Activation if you make excessive changes to the system and that'll require another phone call to re-Activate. A "genuine" Toshiba install would never require Activation, no matter how many changes are made, as long as the motherboard isn't changed.

It's nice that Dell has a web page for requesting OS Install and driver disks. I wish all the PC makers made it that easy to get those disks. A friend just bought an MSI Wind XP box and, despite the Newegg reviews, there's no OS Install CD, no recovery CD, nor is there a utility to make one. There's only a built-in System Recovery partition on the hard drive. Which is worthless if the hard drive fails.

 

[tcsenter]

I'm trying to understand what you are saying. I'm hardly an expert on Toshiba OEM Win7 licenses. Heck, I've never even SEEN a prebuilt PC with Windows 7. But I have a difficult time imagining that if I insert a Retail Win7 disk into my old Toshiba PC it'll automatically acquire a Toshiba preactivation Key.

If your system was preinstalled with Windows Vista, and/or has the appropriate BIOS SLIC table for OEM preactivation, you can use ANY Windows Vista install disc as long as you have the correct OEM certificate .XRM-MS file and generic OEM SLP installation key. It could even be an upgrade disc, but it will still function as an upgrade disc.

The correct OEM certificate .XRM-MS file can either be scavenged from the system drive or obtained from another source (such as another system of the same brand that was preinstalled with the same edition of Vista), using a utility such as Activation Backup and Restore (ABR) for Windows Vista (does not currently work with Windows 7, the author of ABR is currently working on a Windows 7 version). Or it could be downloaded from 'the net'. ABR will simply install the .XRM-MS certificate file and product key (as found in the .TXT file that was created during activation backup), both of which should be located in the same directory as the ABR executable. After restarting the machine, Windows will be activated.

Windows 7 mostly uses the same OEM activation scheme, with some differences. As of yet, I'm not aware of any handy utilities that will automatically backup/restore the required OEM activation files and insert the OEM product key. See:

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?t=7126 (sections F-a and F-b describe manually installing the certificate and product key)

OPATool v0.7 can be used to automatically install the certificate and product key after installation of Windows 7 (but cannot be used to backup this information, it must be supplied manually). As with Vista, any Windows 7 install disc will work since the product key and certificate files are being loaded after installation, not during, as long as the same edition is being installed (e.g. Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate).

 

[13Gigatons]

I was wondering something *similar* to this myself... As I stated above, my Acer laptop came with Win 7 loaded but no installation discs (it does have a COA sticker). I do own a retail copy of Win 7 (with disc and all) that I'm using on a custom built desktop. Can I use that installation disc on my laptop with the laptop's COA number? I would guess Microsoft has each disc keyed with its own COA to make sure people can't do this...

This is what you need to do:

1. Copy the Windows 7 Retail files to the laptop'
2. Delete the file ei.cfg from the sources folder.
3. Click setup.exe and begin installing.
4. Choose home 32 or 64 bit edition.
5. Don't enter your key during install.
6. After install you will have 30 days to activate.
7. Use ABRbeta to restore your certificate and key.