Recovering Pre-installed Windows 7 (laptop)

[z4c4tt4ck]

Hello lovelies. I'm trying to restore the original OS on my old laptop and am having some issues. The problem is at one point I used my laptop HD in my desktop (recovered desktop system image to laptop HD) a while ago after my desktop HD failed, so the desktop OS is installed on the laptop HD at the moment, and the HD is back in the laptop. I have a system image file (.tib) from the day I bought the laptop on an external HD, but I cannot access it with system restore. I have the activation key on the bottom of the laptop, as well as a Win 7 64 bit install disk that I got when I purchased Win 7 for my desktop. I have 4 recovery disks, which I'm not sure what to do with. I tried using the system repair (I believe that is what it was) with the last recovery disk, as prompted but it didn't find a system image. I am not sure what to do at this point. I can provide additional information if necessary. Any ideas?

 

[Laptop_Nerd]

Hi,

If you're trying to format the HDD of the laptop you just use the System Recovery disc that should bring it back to factory. If the System Recovery will not work and if your laptop originally came with Windows 7 just use your Win 7 disc and use the activation key on your laptop that should be a problem.

 

[hang-the-9]

Once you imaged the laptop drive with the desktop image, you no longer have the restore partition on the thing, so can't use that system restore file.

You need to use a standard OS disk to install Windows on the laptop on that drive.

 

[z4c4tt4ck]

Okay, thanks for the help. I'll give it a try tonight.

 

[z4c4tt4ck]

I got the original OS back on it successfully using this method. Thanks guys.