Windows Vista Recovery Disk and Repair Disc Download

2,732 thoughts on “Windows Vista Recovery Disk and Repair Disc Download”

1. hello i have got my lenovo 3 months back and iam unable to open my windows vista,it is showing that some drivers are uninstalled and is not allowing to startup the windows vista.I did not got any reapir cds from the manufacturer ,can i use this recovery software ,and if i install this on my system for repairing it do all my files will be deleated ,iam bit confused about this as i need the files on my computer .Please suggest me in this issue can i use this to solve my problem.

2. Claude, if you’re reading this…. I’ve sent you an email regarding the steps you took to create your WinRE image (the 140 MiB one) so we can attempt to reproduce them for ourselves and post the results. I’d appreciate your help!

3. Spent the better part of a day trying to find a utility to repair a deletion I had accidentally made while using EasyBCD. I wasn’t able to boot up OS to repair mistake. Initially thought this was going to be exactly what was supplied with notebook. However, was able to boot from CD and make repair… THANK YOU for distributing this download!

4. after the regular Windows update last night, my Vista Home Premium that came installed with my HP Pavilion laptop would not boot anymore. the winload.exe seems to be missing or corrupted. the recovery disk that came with the laptop was not helping either because it only allows restoring the whole system to factory settings, which is not something i wanted to do. i figured out that i would need a Windows Vista installation disk but i did not have it either. which meant i would either need to buy one or do some magic tricks. then i came across this post and download the repair disk and boom! the problem was fixed in less 2 minutes! hopefully this post will help others by getting indexed in the search engines.

   thanks a LOT Computer Guru and Neosmart!

5. Farhan S. I have also a HP Pavilion , the DV6000 is what I got, and well me still nothing works, I get the blue screen of death everytime it loads the Windows Vista loader, no matter if its through recovery cd, trying to boot in safe mode or anything, thought if I try to boot with Bert PE I can boot into it, so I know it must be an issue with Vista because on Bert PE I made tests and everything is fine with the hard drive, I can see all my files and such, yet I dont know the problem.

6. “Claude, if you’re reading this…. I’ve sent you an email regarding the steps you took to create your WinRE image (the 140 MiB one) so we can attempt to reproduce them for ourselves and post the results. I’d appreciate your help!”

   I just responded to the email. I was gone for a while. I sent 2 emails. Use the one that says “better instructions”. One of the commands didnt work for me in the first email i sent u. I just went thru and created the disk again and then sent the second email with exactly how i did it.

7. It would be useful to have a recovery CD but I want to format my drive and remove the recovery partition. is it possible to make a Windows Vista Installation CD from the recovery partition and then format and make the drive one partition and re-install Vista.

   I really hate the fact that Dell have forced me to use 10 gigs of my hard disk for the recovery partition rather than just supply me with a copy of vista.

8. Yeah the problem with HP/DELL and all is that they do NOT SUPPLY the vista cd, only recovery cds for the only reason that they dont want people to pirate Windows Vista. That’s what they told me, which sucks ass !

9. Heres how i created the disk:

   1. Make a folder called “downloads” in the root of C: (C:\downloads) and place the file boot.wim from a vista install dvd into it.

   2. Open notepad and paste the following command in it:

   [LaunchApp]
   AppPath=X:\sources\recovery\recenv.exe

   Save that file as Winpeshl.ini and put it in the root of C:

   3. Install the latest WAIK from microsoft. After installation find the command prompt shortcut (start/programs/microsoft waik/Windows PE Tools Command Prompt)

   4. Copy and paste these commands one at a time into the command prompt window:

   copype.cmd x86 c:\winre_x86

   imagex.exe /export /boot c:\downloads\boot.wim 2 c:\winre_x86\winre.wim ?WinRE?

   imagex.exe /mountrw c:\winre_x86\winre.wim 1 c:\winre_x86\mount

   copy c:\winpeshl.ini C:\winre_x86\mount\Windows\System32

   imagex.exe /unmount /commit c:\winre_x86\mount

   4. Then i had to manually copy the file winre.wim from c:\winre_x86 to c:\ISO\sources\boot.wim (i deleted the boot.wim file already in there and renamed winre.wim to boot.wim)

   5. Then i entered this command in the command prompt window:
   oscdimg -n -bc:\winre_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winre_x86\ISO c:\winre_x86\winre_x86.iso

   That was it. 141mb ISO was created and seems to work fine so far.

10. Ignore those numbers in my prior post. They were numbered 1-5. When it posted here, it messed up the numbers.

11. Also the AppPath=X:\sources\recovery\recenv.exe must be directly below the [LaunchApp], not next to it as it appears in the post.

    [LaunchApp]
    AppPath=X:\sources\recovery\recenv.exe

    (formatting issues here lol)

12. small correction

    Then i had to manually copy the file winre.wim from c:\winre_x86 to c:\ISO\sources\boot.wim (i deleted the boot.wim file already in there and renamed winre.wim to boot.wim)

    should read

    Then i had to manually copy the file winre.wim from c:\winre_x86 to c:\winre_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim (i deleted the boot.wim file already in there and renamed winre.wim to boot.wim)

13. I have the same problem as “Corinne”

    “I downloaded this file to ‘recover’ my laptop and it loads through all the screens asking for a serial code and info about the laptop and then it shows that there’s a component error and there’s part of the file missing. So this disc does not work.”

    Please e-mail me at neatangel06@yahoo.com Thank you!

14. Okay. Now my laptop says that it needs a “product key” after I had downloaded this “recovery” thing for my Acer laptop. What do I do? Please e-mail me at neatangel06@yahoo.com Thank you!

15. so I messed up – Vista was slowing down my machine – tried to install XP on Vista system – formatted the drive without thinking at all !!! now XP wont install cause it does not support the new sata drives – so no XP and no Vista cause recovery does not do clean installation !!! so now either find a way to install XP or spend money to buy vista off the shelf !!! (there goes this month’s pocket money !!!)

    if you have a solution to my problem – do share please …

16. your a life saver!!!

    why the fuck does MS supply a service such as this. mate if it were not for you we would have all been screwed.

    my situation is I have purchased a laptop with no vista disk or recovery disk supplied. the partioned recovery software is corrupted so this is the only way I can delete and re-install

    cheers!

17. Hi everyone,
    Straywolf is absolutely right,all of you have serious problems must consider Ubuntu and it is fantastic.
    The manufacturers never give enough warning about this creating recovery discs and put the blame on the customers. The importance of creating this disc must be emphasised by the manufacturer and it is their responsibility because they have got our dosh.

18. “Okay. Now my laptop says that it needs a ?product key? after I had downloaded this ?recovery? thing for my Acer laptop. What do I do? Please e-mail me at neatangel06@yahoo.com Thank you!”

    Enter the product key.

19. “now XP wont install cause it does not support the new sata drives”

    When u try to install XP and the blue screen starts to load (in the beginning), u will see at the bottom something like

    “press F6 key if you have a SCSI or other special driver to provide”

    U must put the driver on a floppy disk or usb drive or burn it to another cdrom/dvd if u have 2 of those drives. If the machine is home made, these drivers might be on the motherboard support cd. If its an off the shelf brand name computer, check the website for that model and its drivers for what brand of SATA drive u have. U may have to get the drivers from that drive manufacturers website. It will work tho.

20. “Enter the product key.”

    BTW, Dina…. “product key” is fancy smancy computer lingo (lol) for serial number. Most computers have it on a sticker somewhere on the computer. If its not on a sticker on the computer itself, its in with the documentation that came with your computer. Should be on a sticker tho.

21. “If its an off the shelf brand name computer, check the website for that model and its drivers for what brand of SATA drive u have”

    Its the SATA controller drivers u will need. Dont want to confuse u. I really need to work on writing documentation. Its my weak spot. 😐

22. I did all the step… One problem. When I was going threw the recovery part of the ISO. I picked my OS and then It came up with a message saying “This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of windows.” My version is Microsoft Windows Vista.

23. “This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of windows.”

    Is your version the 64bit version of vista? This disk is for the 32bit version which is x86.

24. Okay. I entered that and it said that it is not found. What do I do?

25. I meant the product key, I entered my computer’s product key and it gave me an error and said it was not found. What do I do?

26. “Okay. I entered that and it said that it is not found. What do I do?”

    Depends on what “it is not found” means. If u have a newer computer with a SATA hard drive, u may have to load drivers for its controller so it can be seen. I need to know what u r referring too by “it” tho.

27. Hi! This worked? sorta. It boots the computer (a Lenovo 3000 N200 notebook), but it just sits there on a black screen. Nothing! I can see the mouse cursor and move it around, but nothing else goes. Any ideas?

28. “Hi! This worked? sorta. It boots the computer (a Lenovo 3000 N200 notebook), but it just sits there on a black screen. Nothing! I can see the mouse cursor and move it around, but nothing else goes. Any ideas?”

    From playing around with this disk, and the one i made myself… i have found that sometimes it makes a difference whether its cold booted or warm booted. A warm boot would be putting the disk in a running computer and rebooting it by either start/shutdown/restart or ctrl+alt+del. A cold boot would be powering the computer completely off with the disk in the drive and then starting it again. I have no idea y that is happening in some cases. Appears to be a fluke and yet ive seen it quite a bit.

29. We’ve completed our own versions of the Windows Recovery Disc, which is basically a custom-built WinRE w/ some minor modifications, available for both Windows Vista x86 and x64 and it should be available for download shortly.

    This should address the problems people have had with the missing *.wim file errors and several other things.

30. ok after fighting for 5 hours – I did it !!! installed XP but before you do that make sure you have all the XP drivers for your laptop available – cause in my case – they are not !!! but XP is running with whatever drivers that I have – I have ordered a vista CD thru customer support – but I take it as a training lesson!!! lol

    see WinXP does not support SATA – so you make it !!! – most lapotops are not coming with floppy drive these days – so what you do? cut a bootable XP CD with SATA drivers on it !!! all it needs it this little bugger named “iaahci.inf” – and it’s in the file called “sp36132” & you can find it on HP home page – after downloading dun run it – extract it and you will find the driver files in there – I have a HP machine so I looked it up on HP site – I dunno about other brands –

    Download “NLite” – go thru it’s tutorial if you dunno how to use it – burn your CD and you are done !!! too bad new machines do not have XP support anymore !!! I guess we have to get used to Vista now !!! and make sure you got plently of RAM on your machines otherwise even with 2GB DDR2 it feels like 1990 !!!

    NOTE: the recovery image download from this site – works just fine !!! I do suggest people with limited skills to download “ImgBurn” – and then try doing it – but yes after going thru the process it asks for the location of installation files – which ofcourse are not there !!! so yeah – the recovery disk is working 100% –

    cheers –

    Bilal
    UAE

31. I wonder if there is a way to slipstream the SATA drivers from driverpacks.net into a recovery cd. Ive been making WinPE versions for years and im pretty sure u can do it on one of those builds, tho ive never tried to add a full driverpack to a winPE build.

32. Oh, okay. I’m sorry, I meant the product key. I put in my computer’s product key from the sticker at the bottom like you had told me to, but it kept telling me that this product was not found or something. It goes from the logo and takes a minute or so (longer than usual) and goes to a black screen. It gives me the following:

    Yukon PXE v5.12.1.3 (20060316)
    (C)Copyright 2003-2006 Marvel (R)All rights reserved.
    Pre-boot execution Environment (PXE) v2.1
    (C)Copyright 1997-2000 Intel Corporation.
    PXE-E61: Media test, failure, check cable
    PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
    Operating System not found.

    It is an ACER Notebook. I called Acer and they tried to help me but it still wouldn’t work so they told me to send it to them. But I don’t trust them because they might just take it, you know? lol So, if you have any other suggestions, please help! Thanks!

33. Are u sure it found your operating system? PXE is usually associated with netwrok booting. In other words…booting from a NIC card. Seems strange in this case. Are your BIOS settings correct and did the disk find your vista installation at all?

34. Does this same PXE issue happen when u try to boot without the disk in? If it does, try to re-seed the hard drive.

35. I just googled this error: “PXE-E61: Media test, failure, check cable PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM Operating System not found.”

    Try some of these suggestions:

    http://www.nocrash.com/ncbbs/msgs/3247.shtml

36. Basically what youre gonna have to do is get into the BIOS and remove “LAN Booting” and set CDROM/DVDROM to boot first and then Hard drive. I dont think youve even gotten to the vista repair disk yet while booting. The PXE booting u r seeing is how they have it set at the factory so they can put the install on many computers at once. Thats how manufacturers do this. Once u get the BIOS set right, u should be able to boot off the Vista Repair Disk. From the earlier comments, i thought the Vista Repair disk wasnt working for u, but it looks like u cant even get to it in the boot process.

37. Oh, okay. So, after I get that done, then do I still have to put in the recovery cd?

38. Depends on if that solves ur problem. U have to check the boot sequence in the BIOS. If the order of booting has PXE (Network booting) b4 hard drive, then changing that may solve the problem. However u mentioned that it takes a while for that to come up so its possible that PXE isnt the first boot device and hard drive is b4 that but your machine cant find it. In that case, try turning the computer off and taking the hard drive out and putting it back in. If PXE was the first boot device then i wonder if it would take as long as it does to display that message. Go with that advice for now and see what happens.

39. please neosmart im begging you guys to get the x64 recovery cd uploaded, ive been waiting since jan 18 , its been a long wait without my computer. pleasee you commented on the feb 28 saying 64 is done , its 29th now no link please

40. comment removed ?

41. Claude, the WinRE CD here has the SATA drivers… The way I see it, Bilal is referring to XP that doesn’t have them.

42. Dear sir/madam,

    I need hint

    How do I turn on my computer. , and if you have some time could somebody tell me if the shinny side goes up or down when I put a cd in? Thanks in advance. I looking forward for give some program a whirl now.
    sincerly,
    B.Gates

43. “Claude, the WinRE CD here has the SATA drivers.”

    Does it come with them by default or did u have to manually add them? Im used to WinPE and XP rec console or any of the other boot cds u can use to repair OS issues. WinRE is new for me. Never tried to make one til a week or so ago. Other than the cold boot/warm boot issues i mentioned above, i havent ran into any problems with customers computers. Id really like to be able to incorporate the WinRE files with WinPE and just have a combo disk but when making WinPE it doesnt apply (cant find) the SRT package and when making the WinRE it doesnt apply (cant find) the other packages from WinPE.

44. Okay. I checked the BIOS order and it says this:

    Boot Priority order:
    1: IDE 0:
    2: IDE CDROM: Optiarc CD-RW CRX880A-(SM
    3: Network Boot: B02 D00 Yukon PXE
    4: USB HDD:
    5: USB CD-ROM:
    6: USB Floppy:
    7:USB KEY:
    8:
    Excluded from boot order:

    I tried putting the “Network” one as my first one and restarting it and it was still the same. I then tried putting the “IDE CDROM: Optiarc CD-RW” as my first one and that still didnt work. I took out the hard drive and put it back in and it still displays the same “Yukon…Operating System not found” message. Then I put in the CD and it ignored it at first but now it is finally “loading files”.

    Okay. After it finishes loading, I get this screen and it says languages and country and that seems good. Then I click “Next” and I get to this screen that says “Window Vista Install now” , “What to know before installing Windows” , “Repair your computer”. I clicked on “repair your computer”. I come to this screen that says “System Recovery Options” but without any “Operating System” listed. I have the option of clicking “Load drivers” or “Next” . I click “Next” (because I didn’t know what to do when I clicked on “Load Drivers”) …I get to this “Choose a recovery tool” …”Operating System: Unknown on (Unknown) Local Disk” …with all these other options. I click on “Startup Repair” and it is searching for problem. (I had done this before and it said it worked but it hadn’t really fixed the problem). I went back to the screen that said “Load Drivers” and cicked on the “Browse”. I found this folder that said “PXE” and it had all these files but nothing in the files. What should I do?

    (I’m sorry! I know this is a lot but I really, really need to fix my laptop because I need it for school! I really appreciate your help, Claude!)

45. Oh boy Dina, this one is really a problem…..I wish i could get my hands on this computer. I like a challenge. I think maybe we should try this manually using the bootrec.exe tool. Since im terrible with giving instructions, let me see if i can find instructions online and give u a link. BRB (hang tight)

46. Ok i found some links that will tell u how to use the bootrec.exe tool. Its on the recovery disk u have from this site.

    Read this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

    And read method 2 on this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391

    and for a non ms link: http://signpark.proboards81.com/index.cgi?board=windows&action=display&thread=1172516755

47. If those instructions on those links seem confusing… its as simple as choosing command prompt off the WinRE disk System Recovery Options and then entering commands like:

    bootrec /fixmbr

    bootrec /rebuildbcd

    bootrec /fixboot

    bootrec /scanos

    chkdsk /r

    (chkdsk can take a while)

48. Looks like the post with the links didnt show up so ill try it again.

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

    method 2 here- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391

    And a non MS link: http://signpark.proboards81.com/index.cgi?board=windows&action=display&thread=1172516755

    (hopefully this one will show up)

49. Ok ive tried to post links to documentation for u twice now and neither one is showing up. Grrrrrr

    Ima give it a while to see if they show up later. I dont know y they arent showing up.

    🙁

50. Still not showing up. Lets try leaving off the http and see what happens. 😐

    support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

    support.microsoft.com/kb/927391 (methdod 2 on this link)

    signpark.proboards81.com/index.cgi?board=windows&action=display&thread=1172516755

    (a non microsoft link)