If you’re like most PC users, you probably got Windows Vista with a new PC or laptop. And if you’re like 99% of the population, you get your new machines from one of the major manufacturers. Dell, Acer, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo, they all have one thing in common: they don’t give you a real Windows Vista installation disc with your purchase. Instead, they bundle what they call a “recovery disc” (that’s if you’re lucky – otherwise you’ll have a recovery partition instead) with your machine and leave it at that.
It doesn’t matter that you just paid a thousand dollars for a machine that comes with a valid Windows Vista license – your computer manufacturer just don’t want to spend the money (or perhaps take on the responsibility) of giving you a Windows Vista installation DVD to accompany your expensive purchase.
The problem is, with Windows Vista, the installation media serves more than one purpose. It’s not just a way to get Windows installed, it’s also the only way of recovering a borked installation. The Windows Vista DVD has a “recovery center” that provides you with the option of recovering your system via automated recovery (searches for problems and attempts to fix them automatically), rolling-back to a system restore point, recovering a full PC backup, or accessing a command-line recovery console for advanced recovery purposes.
NeoSmart Technologies is hosting a copy of a Windows Vista Repair CD for your convenience. It contains the contents of the Windows Vista DVD’s “recovery center,” as we’ve come to refer to it. It cannot be used to install or reinstall Windows Vista, and just serves as a Windows PE interface to recovering your PC. It is a 120 MiB download, and in the standard ISO format. Please note that this download is no longer free, due to licensing restrictions imposed upon us.
Download Links
Windows Vista Recovery Discs (x86/x64)
Windows 7 Recovery Discs (x86/x64)
You’ll need to burn this ISO image to a CD or DVD before you can use it as a bootable recovery medium. NeoSmart Technologies has published a guide on how to burn an ISO image to CD or DVD with your favorite burning program, which you can read if you need more information or help on this topic.
my keyboard and mouse work, but I computer will not boot, so I bought the CD, boot to fix a boot problem, but it turns off the the mouse and keyboard, so on the screen it has select a recovery option, but I can not select (dell Studio Windows Vista)
Got this to work after spending hours in Vista nightmare world………. Nice tool!
A lifesaver. Fast, accurate, flawless.
It does take a little while for the mouse to work when you get to the screen where you select action/buttons, and I kinda paniced at first, but the function came back just fine after a handful of seconds “freeze” and allowed me to mousepad over to the “Recovery”-button and push it. From there on, a breeze.
Worth every cent. Thanks!!
I have the downloaded Newosmarts recovery file pgm and put it on CD for my Vista system. Prior to re-insalling my original Vista system I copied my entire Vista hard drive via drag and drop to an external drive. Will Newosmarts recovery file pgm help me to use this copy to an external drive to recover my system and pre installed programs and files?
@Beverly Yes, there’s an option to copy and paste files from/across drives.
I think I had a virus on my computer and now my windows vista is unable to start, the launch windows startup repair was unable to fix the problem, I need to get my computer up and running to get my pictures and files off. I am afraid I am going to do the wrong thing and erase my pictures and videos. Does anyone know how to fix this without erasing any files?
Carol, the recovery CD will let you copy the pics from your hard drive to an external disk or email.
My Dell laptop – windows vista won’t boot up, continue to run the booting loop. How to make recovery cd/dvd to reboot the laptop without loosinf the data? Thanks!