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Question

Wiping older laptop and reinstalling Windows 7

Mar 18, 2016 6:21AM PDT

I have a 4 year old Windows 7 laptop 32bit and want to wipe clean then reinstall Windows 7. I have my Windows 7 product key but no disks. How do I create a boot USB drive before wiping and how do I boot up with that USB after to re-install Windows 7?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: installing Windows 7
Mar 18, 2016 6:49AM PDT
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7 tells how to download and install Windows 7.
But that's only the start of the story. After installing Windows, you need to install all needed drivers and utility programs from the manufacturers site in the right sequence. It's much easier to reinstall the factory image from the recovery partition on the hard disk (if there is such a partition, better check the user manual) or to order the recovery media from the manufacturer.

The device to boot from is defined in the BIOS setup. How to go into the BIOS setup is dependent on the BIOS (on my MSI motherboard it's F2); you might need to check the user manual for this also.
An alternative can be to to boot into the boot device selection menu by pressing the right key at the right moment (on my MSI motherboard it's F11).

Kees
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Answer
recovery partition
Mar 18, 2016 9:01AM PDT

you should have a recovery partition. If so, install from there. It will wipe the drive before installing. If you provide the full model number, then maybe someone here can give you the steps.

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Answer
RFM
Mar 18, 2016 9:44AM PDT

Read the fine manual.

It might tell you how to create factory restore media.
If so that's step one.....tuck that media away.

Step two......continue to read the manual.
It might tell you there is a factory restore partition and how to access it.
If so do that and follow the directions.