Pre-installed Vista question

rayer · 17 Jul 2008 at 19:50

If you have a PC with Vista preinstalled, is there anyway to make a backup of the full OS. So if you buy a new disk in the future, you can load Vista back on it ?

Cobertizo · 17 Jul 2008 at 20:05

Ask the people who sold you the PC in the first place to give you a recovery disc?

rayer · 17 Jul 2008 at 20:17

Great, I have 2 blank recovery DVDs to fill myself then. :mad:

Cobertizo · 17 Jul 2008 at 20:33

Not quite sure why that's the logical conclusion from what I said. But if you want to make use of some blank DVDs, and your PC is in a relatively clean state (i.e. in a state you would be happy to restore it to), you could always try some disk imaging software. I think Norton Ghost / Acrontis True Image are some of the popular options. I thought you were after a way of doing a clean install though.

Priapus · 17 Jul 2008 at 20:36

If you have Windows Vista Ultimate or Home Premium ( I think) you are able to use Vista Back up feature. Which backs up the whole hard drive into a single image file. Thus, you can 'reinstall' Vista onto a new drive or same drive, should you need to.

Cobertizo · 17 Jul 2008 at 20:44

Ice On Fire said:
If you have Windows Vista Ultimate or Home Premium ( I think) you are able to use Vista Back up feature. Which backs up the whole hard drive into a single image file. Thus, you can 'reinstall' Vista onto a new drive or same drive, should you need to.

Excellent suggestion - though I think it might just be Ultimate or Business that lets you do that, not Home Premium.

Priapus · 17 Jul 2008 at 20:50

Ja, I am also sure it's just Ultimate and Business that does it.