With Windows 7 released and currently making its way to shelves in time for the holiday season, we've taken this opportunity to upgrade our copy of the official Windows System Recovery Discs for compatibility with Windows 7.
If you're like most PC users, you probably got Windows 7 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; who all have one thing in common: they don't give you a real Windows 7 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 7 license - your computer manufacturer just don't want to spend the money (or perhaps take on the responsibility) of giving you a Windows 7 installation DVD to accompany your expensive purchase.
The problem is, with Windows 7, 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 7 DVD has a complete "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.
Thankfully, Microsoft seems to have realized this problem, and have thankfully made a recovery disc for this purpose. It contains the contents of the Windows 7 DVD's "recovery center," as we've come to refer to it. It cannot be used to install or reinstall Windows 7, and just serves as a Windows PE interface to recovering your PC. Technically, one could re-create this installation media with freely-downloadable media from Microsoft (namely the Microsoft WAIK kit, a multi-gigabyte download); but it's damn-decent of Microsoft to make this available to Windows' users who might not be capable of creating such a thing on their own. You can make your own copy from Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, but now you have an easier alternative.
NeoSmart Technologies is hosting a copy of the Windows 7 Recovery Disc for your convenience. It's a 143 MiB download (165 MiB for the 64-bit version), and in the standard ISO format, ready to burned directly to a CD or DVD. Don't wait until your PC crashes to download a copy! Download and burn your recovery disc today, so that when the time comes, you'll be ready!
What it does: The Windows 7 Recovery Disc can be used to access a system recovery menu, giving you options of using System Restore, Complete PC Backup, automated system repair, and a command-line prompt for manual advanced recovery.
What it doesn't do: You cannot use the Windows 7 Recovery Disc to re-install Windows - it only fixes (not replaces!) Windows.
Why you need it: If you bought your PC from a major retailer, you didn't get this CD with your hefty purchase.
Download LinksWindows 7 Recovery Disc 32-Bit (x86) Edition
Windows 7 Recovery Disc 64-Bit (x64) Edition
Please note that the above links point to .torrent files. Torrent files are like a shortcut, they tell a download manager on your PC where to download the actual files from. Downloading large & important system files with torrents is highly recommended since torrents are protected against corrupt downloads and tend to be faster when well-shared.
(All torrents are currently being seeded by 100mpbs servers, they should be blazing fast).
You can download the Windows Vista recovery discs from here.
Instructions- Download the appropriate .torrent file from above that corresponds to the version of Windows 7 you have installed.
- Download and run µTorrent.
- Open the .torrent file you downloaded with µTorrent. (File -> Add Torrent)
- Select where you want µTorrent to save the 7 Recovery Disc.
- Wait for it to download.
- Burn the .iso file that µTorrent downloaded to a CD using these instructions.
- When you want to use the recovery center, put the CD in your drive and boot from it. This is usually done by pressing F8 at startup, or changing the boot drive order in the BIOS.
Please don't ask for help below, it'll get real cluttered real soon! Open a support thread at http://neosmart.net/forums/ and we'll help you resolve your problem ASAP.
Have these been modified in any way? People are scared as hell of torrent files. So many are dangerous or modified from the orignal.
Nope. Pristine clean: we have a reputation to protect.
Can anyone tell me how Windows 7 is? Is it better than Vista,xp? Is there any reason to change to this system now? Thank you
7 is significantly better. Here is a quick summary http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459293141191728.html
Do this work for vista to since they are very much alike
Yes, these will work for Vista, too. But NeoSmart Technologies a has a Vista-specific version here: http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/
Whuut!? If they would post those Windows 7 Recovery Disc, why not give us links to a server where we can download, instead of this torrent crap,...?
X64 version: 10 seeders, download speed: 0,0kb/s - and same speed after 3 hours
@NickereN2O
Check your network connection settings. I connected to 19 seeders and got a max speed of 2138 kB/s using uTorrent.
NickereN2O, there two 100mbps servers seeding the torrents right now, so it is definitely a problem on your end, not ours. Check your network settings and/or contact your network administrator if you're still having problems.
The reason we have them as torrent files is due to the rather nasty practice of hotlinking. The first time we put up the Windows Vista recovery discs for download, certain Chinese sites drove us to 2TiB of data overnight, racking up huge and unsustainable costs.
With bittorrent, we have our 100mbps servers providing the data, but as soon as soon it gets too expensive, we can safely take those offline while guaranteeing that the files will still be there for anyone that needs to download them.
So, guys, please keep seeding!
Unfortunately, the corporate network powers-that-be don't allow torrent access. This translates into downloading at home. Pain.
Obviously the torrent thing is due to the bandwidth involved to provide the download directly to everyone. It would chew up the monthly bandwidth allowed by the host in a hurry. I would agree with the torrent thing though, too many people mess with these torrents and you never know what you will end up with.
Spot on, Dolphin.
When we first released the Windows Vista Recovery Disc a year or so ago, we were hosting it ourselves. Overnight, a number of Chinese news websites hot-linked directly to the ISO image, running up several terabytes of traffic in a matter of mere hours. We were forced to switch to torrents because we totally overran our bandwidth budget due to that nasty behavior.
The Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit ISO images have together been downloaded to the toll of 100 TiB in the past year, excluding the direct downloads mentioned earlier. You can imagine the cost that would incur on our non-profit organization.
Why not post it up on rapidshare.com? All it takes is a simple upload (and maybe some patience). If the chinese sites hotlink it, then it won't get deleted from rapidshare (before a very long time). haha. :) Of course, there are other sites, but rapidshare has nearly no ads.
I don't use torrents: they're mainly used to get things illegally. (And are rather inefficient for us users)
This will come in very usefull thx, i downloaded this torrent in 30 seconds. If only you guys here at neosmart.net hosted cr@cked warez etc lol!... (;
I don't get you people... neosmart is a reliable site so what's with all the complaining about using torrents? And the download is really fast, only took me 4 min at home. Thanks for this!!!
Is this the same thing as created by the built-in recdisc.exe?
@Chris: People is not used to the change. That's all..
@Nobody: If I understand the article correctly, I think you are right. Anybody can create this exact same thing by running recdisc.exe from the command-line. Pop a DVD into your burner and away you go.
this should be hosted on a ddl service website
Ah, this disk is wonderful. Not sure why people are complaining about the torrent. Not only is it much faster, safer and more reliable, but it shows there are some excellent legitimate and legal uses for such a protocol.
I downloaded it and compared the file sizes to the one I made from backup and they are not the same.
for example:
My Boot.wim is 168,035,558 Theirs is 168,390,841
So their is almost 400,000 bites larger.
I would be interested to know what size Boot.wim comes out to be for other people who create the recovery disk on their system. It's in the sources folder.
Hi, I am curious to know what is the procedure and tools you used to achieve this system recovery tool?
Is it only a Windows PE environment with a command prompt?
We did not burn from recdisc.exe then rip to an ISO; instead we used something known as a virtual CD burner.
64-bit: 168,390,841 created from Windows 7 Build 6.1.7600.16385 with RecDisc.exe with an MD5 of CDE81C3D7B325B33D8E0EA1AD7E93655
32-bit: 144,838,785 created from Windows 7 Build 6.1.7600.16385 with RecDisc.exe with an MD5 of D8C17663091088F594258FF40F23E4B6
Hello.
In Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, you can go into the Control Panel "Backup and Restore" applet/window. On the left hand side, there is a "Create a system repair disc" option.
Is this Windows 7 System Recovery Disc the exact same thing? Any difference?
Thanks in advance for the feedback.
Hi, Are these recovery discs still downloadable? I don't seem to be getting any response when trying to download one. I've been trying for over 24 hours now and not a glimmer.
@Jeff: It's the same thing, except that feature is not, to the best of my knowledge, enabled in all editions/SKUs of Windows 7, and more importantly, you can download and burn this recovery CD from a non-Windows-7 environment (be it another PC, a Linux Live CD, etc.) after you've fried your PC. :-)
rapidshare.com/files/295118939/Windows_7_32-bit_Repair_Disc.rar
rapidshare.com/files/295160998/Windows_7_64-bit_Repair_Disc.rar
Thanks for the Rapidshare links. I've downloaded and tested, virus free!
A lot of folks here don't know what the heck they are talking about re: Torrents. Torrents are not dangerous, inefficient, or morally hazardous. They are reliable, fast, efficient, and cheap for hosts to provide. You can cancel and restart your download as needed. You automatically get a hash-checked download so you can be sure it is uncorrupted.
Windows users should use uTorrent, Mac users Transmission. Both free and well-designed tools.
Learn it folks!
RS, Thanks for the Rapidshare link, downloaded in 14 mins, burned and verified in ImgBurn. All ready for the disaster when it happens, although I'll give it a run through to make sure that it does boot up and go through the motions the next time I restart my PC. There's nothing worse than sitting there with a false sense of security thinking you're safe and then finding out, when it's too late, that you're not8-(
Thanks again.
You folks do realize the Windows 7 installation disc(s) does the same thing, right? It has the same tools on it, so the only real benefit to having or using these is to keep the original media (probably purchased unless you've got an MSDN/TechNet sub which would mean you can just re-download the ISO(s) and burn anytime).
These discs - and I'm grateful to see them being posted for new users of Windows 7 as I've been running it for nearly 2 years now as a tester - are not absolutely necessary but are a welcome addition so that yes, you can keep the original installation media in a safe place and use these if necessary.
Honestly, with over 25,000 Windows 7 installations so far, I've never had a need to use Recovery mode at all, not one time, on thousands of different machines and configurations.
Windows 7 is really all that, and a bag of chips too. :)
Have fun, always...
Does anyone have the MD5sum for both the 32 & 64 bit iso that we are downloading here from the torrent. I would appreciate if anyone could post it or tell me where to get it . Thank you
Booted up with the disc from the rapidshare link and everything went as hoped, I didn't actually do a repair because the system is still OK. I was just making sure that it is alright before it is desparately needed.
Thanks for the disc and all your help, which is much appreciated.
Oh, if the Vista md5sums are available, I would like to get those as well. Thank You, John
Hey all, I was wondering if the repair disc would be able to enable me to upgrade from XP to Windows 7.
Thanks in advance.
You just have to make the upgrade iso bootable. There are two ways that have been well documented in windows7forums.com
Also you can use easy transfer to backup your files and programs to usb or disk and restore them after 7 is installed.
The W7 Installation DVD will do everything this download does. You don't need to download this if you've already purchased a DVD. It's provided (like the Vista versions before it) for those people who've bought an OEM PC pre-loaded with W7 where the OEM didn't provide a portable recovery facility. You can use this to repair a broken boot, to regain access to the hidden recovery partition.
Thanks for this tool! The torrent is great ;) If the load is too heavy on your severs, please add the following trackers to the torrent (and re-upload the torrent)!
http://tracker.openbittorrent.com/announce udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce
This way if the neosmart tracker is down or overloaded, the torrent will still work! For more info check: http://openbittorrent.com/
I got Windows 7 and I love it. But there were some little problems with the drivers...
Does anyone have Megaupload links to these? Rapidshare is slow.
Hello, The reason I aquiring your excellent software is becuase I had an issue during my windows 7 install. It seems something critical happened during the install which is causing my desktop pc to loop between startup. It boots up to windows saying "starting up services" and then it restarts itself. Now I downloaded your vista recovery disk(awesome by the way) and tryed to use it. It unfortunatly gives me errors when trying to install vista, and the repair feature did not work. So now I am going to try out this windows 7 recovery. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I've the same question as JEff:
"
Hello.
In Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, you can go into the Control Panel "Backup and Restore" applet/window. On the left hand side, there is a "Create a system repair disc" option.
Is this Windows 7 System Recovery Disc the exact same thing? Any difference?
Thanks in advance for the feedback. "
That is what they are providing. However I downloaded it and it's a different size than the one that my computer made. No one can explain why. Perhaps there are various drivers added from the system it's built on. In that case I wonder how compatible a generic startup disk would be with other systems?
Thank you very much for providing this article, the instructions and the torrent links; very helpful for a self-proclaimed computer illiterate (like me)!
Awesome, I love you guys! <3
They are the exact same thing... No need to download this....
===========================================================>>>>>>>>>>
I've the same question as JEff:
"
Hello.
In Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, you can go into the Control Panel "Backup and Restore" applet/window. On the left hand side, there is a "Create a system repair disc" option.
Is this Windows 7 System Recovery Disc the exact same thing? Any difference?
Thanks in advance for the feedback. "
I just wanted to take the couple of seconds effort needed to say: 'Thank you very much for organising these files'
I really appreciate it and I am sure many, many others do too.
I have a Windows XP laptop and will upgrade it with an upgrade disk to Windows 7 soon.
Now I wonder, in case the worst case scenario takes place and my computer crashes one day: If I have to install Win on a new hard disk, would I need to reinstall XP first and then upgrade to Windows 7 or could I take the shortcut over the above mentioned repair/recovery disk? (or is the Windows 7 upgrade disk alone sufficient?)
um...can i use the recovery disk to change from windows xp to 7???
Gary,
no
Doesn't Windows 7 include a way to create this disk? I think I remember this option from somewhere... Hmm...