Formatting Windows 7 on laptop with local recovery partition

[Fazermint]

Hey guys! Hope you don't mind me asking for some tech help!

So I want to reformat / reinstall my pc (not sure which term is the right one). I've got a laptop with Windows 7, with a recovery partition on the internal hard drive. I was looking around on the interwebz for some walkthroughs on how to reinstall, but none of them accounted for using the local recovery partition and they go on about burning Win7 onto DVDs or making a bootable USB...

A friend told me there was a simpler way that took less than an hour to perform, using the local recovery partition. But he didn't remember how... This is where you guys come in!

(sorry if you think I'm lazy and should just keep googling, if you feel that way then that's ok. I just feel better getting "live" tips instead of following outdated and incomplete guides )

[MaslowK]

You lazy bastard

I've actually never done it with a recovery partition (always used the burn-to-dvd/USB option), but this looks like it might possibly work with the setup you have;

http://www.shivaranjan.com/2009/05/2...-system-image/

Let me know if this ends up being applicable to you, I'd be interested in knowing for future reference.

[Sprung]

Go to the website of your laptop manufacturer. They will have information on what button you need to push at boot to make the PC go into the recovery console. Should be under the support section

Generally, you push whatever button the manufacturer chose, and then select to restore the system to factory, and sit back and watch the magic happen.

[Fazermint]

Thanks for the tips!

It was quite simple, I had to press F11 on startup to get the system restore menu. It's of course my luck that I ended up with the error message "System restore incomplete", leaving me with broken PC! I had to download a Win7 iso, flash it onto a USB using WinToFlash and reinstall the whole skedaddle. I hate it when

[MaslowK]

Thanks for the tips!

It was quite simple, I had to press F11 on startup to get the system restore menu. It's of course my luck that I ended up with the error message "System restore incomplete", leaving me with broken PC! I had to download a Win7 iso, flash it onto a USB using WinToFlash and reinstall the whole skedaddle.

Yep, that's why I don't generally bother with MS's proposed solutions to restoring Windows, and always prefer to just install a fresh copy (not to mention, not break it in the first place ). Good job though.