partitions on all major brands and have never had to enter the license key to activate Windows.
![]() | Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years. Thanks, CNET Support |
Discussion is locked
partitions on all major brands and have never had to enter the license key to activate Windows.
asus lAPTOP N7JVTY12V
operating system .windows 7 os Win7 home premium 64-Bit-_EDITION
HDD 500GB
CPU i5 tECHNOLOGIE _dUAL cORE
430M
model number :asus N7premium
Prozesssor: intelcorei5
NvidiaGeFoorceQT325M;VRAM:1GB
Funktionen:IntelTurbo BOoost Technology
Why cann I do it?
Thanks
ortanse
Sorry, but your question isn't clear.
- what do you want to do?
- why can't you do it?
Kees
Having fought with Vista on a customer's machine, I don't find myself all that keen to go to Win7, and have stayed with XP. On my main HP machine, I could not find a way to get a clean installation either, so my solution was to go backwards.
1. Download Spotmau, or a similar partition recovery program that is bootable from CD.
2. Once you have done a "factory" reset, spend all the necessary time uninstalling the unwanted bloatware.
3. Run a Registry Cleaner to get rid of extraneous garbage that may have been left by said bloatware.
4. Boot the partition recovery CD and copy the boot partition to USB drive.
5. Whenever you want to restore your computer in the future, ignore the pre-installed partition and just use your partition recovery CD to copy the USB drive back to the boot partition.
You can then have your machine back up and running in about twenty minutes instead of the hours it seems to take for the "recovery installation" to proceed.
I keep my boot partition just under 16GiB, and install the programs that I want as part of the "clean" installation. I then create a "Program Files" directory on the D: partition for installation of any other software. I also store all my "mail boxes" and "Documents" folders on D: so that a "factory reset" doesn't lose my data.
The procedure I described above was what I had to do with an HP NX6320--no matter what I do, it will not accept a standard XP Disc for installation.
In the case of the of the Acer eMachine EM250, it burned THREE recovery discs:
2 discs For "Factory Recovery" and
a 3rd disc that just contains the drivers and bloatware--therefore I was able to use a standard XP disc to run the install and then the 3rd recovery disc to load the necessary drivers and skip over the bloatware--after full customization for performance instead of looking pretty, I made several images of the boot partition in stages as I built it into what I wanted:
1 Image of clean install with correct drivers and wireless disabled, but all other networking pre-configured. This also includes certain customizations such as minimal fonts, 98 interface instead of XP, 24 hour time etc. along with a nice list of registry modifications that I discovered for performance improvement,
2 Image of customizations with anti-virus and other utilities: iRotate, SpeedFan etc.,
3 As this machine was purchased for a dedicated purpose, third image includes the software for that purpose.
I can temporarily install another program if necessary, and instead of "Registry Restore", I can just reimage the boot partition and there is nothing left of the temporary program, except the D:\saved output from that program.
You might be able to get them to send you the Windows disc. As for creating a usable windows disc I've never heard of it. I wouldn't suggest trying to make one from instructions off the internet if there are any. You never know what could happen. You could wreck your machine.
To HP, the preinstalled software are called features of your PC you bought. I'm a long time HP user. You have the responsibility to create the recovery disc from the recovery partition. Of course, the recovery disc that is created from recovery partition will include all preinstalled software. If you don't want some software, you may have to uninstall them manually. Or, you can create a full system image backup with some of the preinstalled software removed. From my previous experience, there are cases when the full system image backup that I created myself using Windows 7 doesn't work. Fortunately, I did keep the HP recovery disc. Of course, if your PC was new and still under warranty, you can send your PC back to HP. You may have to wait for quite some time. My suggestion is unless there is one or more hardware failures, just do it yourself to avoid any inconveniences.
Yes...any imaging-ghosting program will do this.....so will Windows 7.
In Windows 7 you can use it's back-up program and create recovery disk.
or
Use
Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, Macrium Reflect (free), clonezilla (free) or any other free imaging program. Saerch CNET downloads for free imaging, back-up programs.
1 Step is to delete all the bloatware and any other programs you do not want and Step 2 Create the image of the hard drive. Once you create the image...most of these programs, also, have the option to create the recovery-bootdisk to boot the PC up in case of diaster. I have tested out W7 and Macrium Reflect and they both work.....Macrium Reflect uses Linux recovery disk and it had problems from multipe (DVDs) but did re-image from an external harddrive.
Thanks for all of the helpful info. I was trying to avoid restoring the original factory configuration and cleaning it up before imaging the drive, but that seems to be the consensus for the best approach. Also thanks for the link to download Windows 7 and then use my original product key. I appreciate all of the input. It has all been very helpful.
Rick
I would try to use it working with Windows PE. Windows PE 2.0 was for Vista and 3.0 is for Windows 7. People have used 2.0 for 7, but takes some work. At least the Microsoft site for PE 2.0 contained great detail and configuration data and scripts. Here are your links:
Building a Windows PE Image:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799244(WS.10).aspx
Walkthrough: Create a Custom Windows PE Image
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709665(WS.10).aspx
John
You can borrow the Windows 7 install disk from a friend or a computer shop and install the OS using the key on the sticker that is on your computer. It is perfectly legal.
You can also make a "Windows 7 Universal disk", that will prompt you to select which version to install (Home, Pro, etc.). See http://mytechweblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-make-windows-7-universal-disk.html
The problem with so much of the bundled software is that its almost impossible to find and eliminate all the files. Many of the programs leave files, and registry entries behind, even after you uninstall the programs. Just try to find all of them for AOL.
I don't have a recommendation. But, manually trying to get rid of everything first, is NOT the way to do it.
This software "will" get rid of applications that windows won't show and a lot more, like even scattered strings of registry entries and orphan file links, even metadata. It's Revo Uninstaller
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html
John
Ofcourse there are many answers to the same question and mine is just one of them. But for a recovery disk witch has all the things on it I want, I use Acronis True Image. Ofcourse this is not free solution, but in my opinion it's worth the money.
First of all it's realy fast. An image of my Windows 7 partition - with all the programms installed I frequently use - takes about ten minutes. You can split images in predefined sizes, including DVD 5 (4,7 GB). Acronis has the option to create a Secure Zone on one of your partitions in witch you can store the images, but you can also store them elsewhere.
One of the most nifty futures I find the boot recovery option. Before Windows starts you get the option to press F11 and start Acronis True Image outside of Windows, so in case of disaster you can always restore your system, even if Windows won't start.
Like I said: it's just one of many options and this will cost you some money. But the benefits are great! Especialy if you have to install many new drivers for your hardware or install a lot of software. It saved my behind more then once.
Finally it's good to mention that Acronis is not the only image software out there. Norton became famous with it's Ghost and there are ofcourse many others.
Is not needed and just a repair of the registry will rectify most problems quicker than restore.And if unable to boot up system restoration of registry can be done from boot-able usb or disk.
Using a simple tool like Erunt-http://majorgeeks.com/Erunt_d1267.html
Okay, could someone explain a couple of things to a new user about creating a recovery disk?
What specific items do you mean by "bloatware"?
Why can't an external hard drive be used for the recovery disk?
Someone mentions stripping away software, etc, (bloatware maybe?) that you don't want on the restore disk, is there a simple way to do this or do you have to uninstall/reinstall it all?
Thank you all for your contributions to CNET. I've really learned a lot here!
"What specific items do you mean by 'bloatware?'"
====>Bloatware is software that developers try to load with features while paying no attention to resource consumption and hard disk occupancy; it's bloated. That said, usage of the word, "bloatware" is a misnomer more often than not; people are usually thinking of "crapware," which means useless software that often comes preinstalled on OEM PCs or bundled into installer packages for the programs people really want. See here for a list of the items that PC Decrapifier will remove.
"Why can't an external hard drive be used for the recovery disk?"
====>It can be used for recovery. But sometimes people would like to make DVDs because they are permanent, and less susceptible to corruption and virus infection. Also, if you ever want to make a recovery set for someone else, and specifically someone who doesn't own an external hard drive, DVDs are the way to go.
"Someone mentions stripping away software, etc, (bloatware maybe?) that you don't want on the restore disk, is there a simple way to do this or do you have to uninstall/reinstall it all?"
====>Try PC Decrapifier.
Hope this helps!