Win 7 Reinstall

**BigHub** · 01-05-14, 03:31 PM

So I want to reinstall my Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

The last reinstall I did, I made a backup onto DVD's. Can I do a reinstall using those disc's? Might be a stupid question, as I think the answer is yes... but want to make sure before I start the process. Also, if I click Start > Maintenance > Back Up & Restore - is that where I go to do the reinstall/restore with my backup DVD's?

**Phyrelight** · 01-05-14, 03:40 PM

yes you can use them, you will need to boot from the disks if you did a complete restore. If its just an image of the system you will need to boot from a win 7 install disk and click to restore and select your restore disks as the media to restore from.

**BigHub** · 01-05-14, 04:41 PM

They are backup discs I believe... After I did a fresh install of my Win 7, I created backup discs.

backup discs = image?

**BigHub** · 01-05-14, 05:51 PM

Ya, I don't think it's an image... It's a backup of all my files. Lame.

**BigHub** · 01-05-14, 11:57 PM

Bah fuck... fresh install it is.

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**Phyrelight** · 01-06-14, 09:41 AM

You can do a fresh install and then restore you data from disks

Once you get the system up and running do a "create system image" option

**BigHub** · 01-06-14, 12:20 PM

That's what I'm going to do. I've done a fresh install, and once I get all my Microsoft updates done I'm going to create a system image this time.

**shatter99** · 01-07-14, 10:21 PM

If you have the space on a different drive.. set up a weekly backup schedule in Windows 7 that makes a disk image. that way if you get hit by a malware or virus attack.. you just restore the latest image (assume it is not affected as well)... The built in Backup/Restore capabilities for Windows 7 will do everything you need. Make sure you make a system restore CD.

At work we use this approach to get our developer workstation back up in about 30 minutes when a SSD dies or corrupts the disk (we keep multiple spare SSD of the same brand of course).. trying to manually rebuilt that workstation takes us 2 days...and a gazillion product installs..

**grayman** · 01-11-14, 06:31 PM

I use a program called Deepfreeze on my system drive folder and save all of my user data (pics, docs, etc) to peripheral HDs.

There are only 2 downsides to this approach:
-You have to "unfreeze" and restart your system before you make any system changes.
-Your system isn't recoverable via the Deepfreeze system when it's "thawed"

The good side when system is "frozen":

You can go into your system folder and delete your entire system until it BSoD and dies. Then turn the machine off and back on and like magic it boots like nothing happened.

We used this at Valencia College when I was supporting all of the classroom and library research computers. We had to leave them pretty open for research purposes so they were vulnerable to system failures from viruses/inexperienced users/etc.