vista bootable to use with pc complete restore

T

tonye

Member
Hi,
I upgraded a system from xp to vista enterprise for my corporation and created an image of it so that i can duplicate the system image on other systems using complete pc restore. But from what i read on the net, i would require a bootable vista dvd which i dont have with me. How do i create a vista bootable cd that would lead me to the windows recovery environment so that i can load the system image i have created.

tonye
 
Hi Terry60,
Thanks for the site. I have downloaded and burned the file and used it on an XP system with the Complete PC Restore files created from a working vistat system, as directed in the instructions on the site: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD
After completing the restore process, the system restarted and came up with the message:
"A disk read error occurred"
"Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

I thought the cloning of a working vista system to overwrite this XP system will make it a working vista system as well. That's the aim of the whole process

Paul
 
A cloning system wont overwrite a current system. It would jsut place a clone of the system on there. It wont overwrite that system. You would have to do a upgrade install for that. If you are trying to preserve the data that is.

Also when you burned the Disc did you burn the ISO correctly? Instructions available here:

Burning ISO Images to a CD or DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

That will create a workign CD for you.
 
There's nothing wrong with the burning. The ISO worked fine. But after i had booted the system with it i chose the repair option and pointed to the backup image and it loaded them fine and restarted and then brought up the message above. I read on the net that with PC Complete Restore in vista, you can setup a system with the applications you want and duplicate its image to other systems. I have a lot of systems to setup thats why i need to get this right.
 
Sorry Paul,
I pointed you to the disk to get you the Vista recovery environment you wanted, and I have experience only of the boot repair from that. I've never used the PC complete restore option, so can offer no help with that.
I don't know if Guru has used it, or if we have other members with the experience to help you.
Good luck. I'm glad at least you've got the environment you need to experiment with anyway.
 
As far as i know you can only use that image or clone on the PC that has the Recovery Partition on their system. Since you would be restoring it to factory defaults. If the system you are using it on doesnt have any previous restore points or the recovery partition i dont think it would work.
 
I am already using the recovery facility that came with the system to restore it to factory settings so the MBR is not an issue. Any ideas on how i can actually achieve this feat?
 
Well, it'll only work if it's 99.99% identical hardware, otherwise it'll never happen.

If that's the case though, I'd recommend directly cloning it with a 3rd party program like Acronis True Image 11.
 
I use Complete Restore on a Lenovo R500 Vista Business laptop to clone other 4 identical R500 laptops. They are all OEM activated now and get the same SID. I can't see any problems, they run fine.
The only problem is the SID issue. I change the computernames and the workgroup. In domain environment is the issue with same SID no problem.
It's very easy to clone computers with PC Complete restore and I don't hope any problems in future. I don't understand why Microsoft does not embed the SID change issue in PC Complete restore. Cloning with BDD and other technologies takes to much time.
 
Vista Recovery Disc

Please help, I am not sure which recovery version is right for my Vista Basic 32 or 64 bit? My machine is a Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo Mobile V5535. I was very lucky once as Car Phone Ware house kindly swapped the laptop when I had a problem. I want to be cautious now!! Is it ok/safe to download and save both versions?
 
Last edited:
Hi Khalid. Welcome to NST.
You should download and use the 32 bit version, unless you know for sure your hardware supports 64 bit. :wink: But I can see no harm in downloading both versions, anyway, because even if the current computer you're using doesn't support 64 bit, you might find a need to use the 64 bit version somewhere down the road.

Cheers,

Jake
 
Looking back over this thread, is it safe to assume our recovery disc can be used for complete PC restore? I would think that though its a backup thats being restored the installation windows image would still have files that would be needed.
 
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