how to create genuine vista recovery disc? (not a product recovery disc)

I'm having one of those moments where I'm thinking "there must be at least tens of thousands of people with the same issue, why aren't there more complaints?"


Vista Business (or Ultimate) allows you to create a complete PC backup. However, once this backup is created, MANY people have no way of using it, because MANY systems ship without any type of Vista installation disc.

For example my Lenovo T60 allows me to create product recovery discs, that work fine to recover the product to original factory condition.

But that's not the same thing and not what I want. These product recovery discs never get you to Vista's actual recovery center, and you cannot do a Complete Restore without a Vista distribution disc.

I don't have such a disc. So I have a backup that I can't use.

I did however run accross the following link.

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

This seems to address exactly what I need. But I'm very surprised that I need to go down some path like this for such a basic feature of Vista. I must be doing something wrong.

Does anyone know of a better solution than what this link provides?

 

You're right, it is a basic feature and it was in the beta and then it was removed for RTM, then it was in the beta for Sp1, and then removed.

In fact, the file needed to create the recovery disk remains in your windows directory, but it has been disabled (just to make you even more crazy)

I have never gotten a good answer for any of this and gave up asking.

 

someone just sent me this link, on another post I had.

https://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Wi...e85811033.mspx

Let me try this. If using F8 works during bootup, then I'll be done.

 

well, when I press F8 during startup, I do get some new options (related to safe mode etc), but "Repair Your Computer" isn't one of them, despite what was said on Microsoft's help page (in the link in the previous post).

Now I'm wondering if I need to first get my T60 back up to SP1 before this will work. I'm going to try that next I guess. This is crazy.

 

quick update:

I updated Vista to SP1, and it made no difference.

So the instructions from microsoft to use F8 during startup didn't work, at least not in my case.

I either need to create a recovery disc (which I'm not confident at all about how to do it), or I need to somehow find a Vista installation disc.

Seems like this feature wasn't well thought out by microsoft at all. They had to realize that a lot of PC manufacturers do not ship the vista installation discs.

 

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080324/recover-create-a-recovery-disc-vista-sp1-rtm/

If you like, you can still create one using the pre-release version from sp1

 

Thanks. I'll try that I guess.

I tried to do a chat with Microsoft about this issue. They wanted to charge $59, so I said no.

I think Microsoft should have something like the Instant Replay rule in pro football, where the coach can challenge the call.

If the coach is wrong, he gets charged a time out, and if the coach is right, he doesn't get charged.

In this case, the user claim would be that one of Microsoft's big claimed benefits of Vista Business and Ultimate won't work for a large contingency of users (all those users that don't get OS discs with their purchased PC).

Microsoft would need to either prove the user wrong, or admit the flaw (and hopefully fix it). Oh well, nice to dream.

 

The method desribed at neosmart.net works (see links above). Thanks for the help, it was actually very easy. I should have tried it before all the complaining I guess, but I still think Microsoft shouldn't force users to have to go through a workaround like this. There are a lot of people who probably wouldn't try it.

One note about the method on neosmart.net. It sort of suggests you need to use imgeburn or some other program they've listed to burn the iso file to disc. I was able to use nero express without any problem.