Vista x64 Recovery Disk doesnt work

D

Dava04

Member
Hi,

I have just downloaded the Vista x64 recovery disk, I have extracted it to my USB pen and burnt it to a CD.

Restarted the system, made sure that the machine would only boot of the removable media, removed the HDD boot option, and nothing.

The machine will not start the recovery disk, neither drivers did anything, the recovery didn't start and I end up, with the computer asking for media that is bootable.

Re adding the HDD as the third options, just leaves the coputer cycling throught the options and ending up loading Vista.

I guess I am missing something incredibily simple as I cant find any other mention of this on the forum.

Please any bright ideas.

Thanks
 
Hi Dava, welcome to NST.
You don't extract anything.
If you've ended up apparently with a .rar file, it's probably a consequence of the software you used,in combination with not having known file types displayed in folder options.

Follow the instructions for downloading torrents and you should end up with a .iso file which you burn directly to CD.

Use Imgburn. It's free and we know it works. Other software might not.
 
Hi Thanks for the reply,

I don't have a.rar file on the disk I have:

a boot folder
a sources folder
a bootmgr file

I took the .iso and extracted unpacked burnt the iso to the disk, I believe that the process was done correctly.

Total 2 folders

3 files,

Please advise.

Dava.
 
You don't have to extract or unpack anything. Burn the whole ISO file exactly as it downloaded.
 
Terry,

I did, the packaged was burnt as it should have been, it was downloaded from the torrent and i unpacked it / burnt it / decompressed it / extracted it. as it should have been done, all these terms basically mean the same anyway!!!

1. The .iso was burnt using power iso, burnt correctly it would seem, as I described in the previous post.
2. The files were unpacked to the USB drive and looks exactly the same as the files CD.

Nothing happens on the boot!!!!

I have x64 ultimate

The download is x64

Thanks.
 
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There'll be a feature in ImgBurn along the lines "burn iso to disc". Click there and follow the on-screen instructions.
 
Dava,
Unpack, extract, decompress.
I'll accept all those as synonyms, but you don't do any of them.
Burn is not a synonym for any of them
An ISO file is a special file type, an image of an entire CD/DVD, with all its internal folders, subfolders and files.
You don't manipulate it after downloading it. You leave it exactly as it is, a single ISO file, and you Burn it - i.e. you write it to a CD with a laser, using a specialist burning program
There are loads of them, Vista comes with one built in, but it can't burn ISOs
Lots of others also have problems burning an ISO file into a usable bootable CD. That's why we recommend Imgburn, because we know it works and it's free.
 
Hi,

I am not new to this and do have a very good knowledge of what to do with various files, which is why I have tried to be so clear, but it seems to have back fired.

In my first post I wrote "I have extracted it to my USB pen and burnt it to a CD" OK so the USB part may be wrong but it clearly states that I burnt the .iso to a cd.

Third post I have stated again "1. The .iso was burnt using power iso, burnt correctly it would seem, as I described in the previous post." Clearly using the word 'burnt'.

Terry this is totally unnecessary "i.e. you write it to a CD with a laser, using a specialist burning program" Obviously I know its not done with a pencil, as I have stated I have 'burnt' once or twice before, I am sure.

So please lets skip being condescending, assume for a moment that the burn is correct, I still need help as it will not boot from the CD. Which was burnt correctly and has all the correct files on it as described below and checking this forum, by others too.

I have now tried imgburn to, still the same problem.

Thanks.
 
Dava04 said:
Restarted the system, made sure that the machine would only boot of the removable media, removed the HDD boot option, and nothing.

The machine will not start the recovery disk, neither drivers did anything, the recovery didn't start and I end up, with the computer asking for media that is bootable.

Re adding the HDD as the third options, just leaves the coputer cycling throught the options and ending up loading Vista.
Click to expand...

When you said you "removed the HDD boot option", what exactly do you mean by that?
And I'm assuming you made sure the CD/DVD drive was first in the boot sequence in the BIOS, when attempting to boot from the CD?

Jake
 
Sorry you took offence Dava, none intended.
We get thousands of requests for help on here ranging from IT professionals with a query on an esoteric point, to newbies who don't know any more than how to turn the PC on.

One of the common problems is with people who didn't read the burning instructions, and since you stated in your 1st post "I extracted ......", and in your 3rd that burning and extracting were basically the same thing, I don't think I was unreasonable or condescending to make sure that you weren't in the newbie category in your level of understanding. (We have only just met !)
Everyone else who replied inferred the same, from the wording of your first post.

As I said, clarification not condescension was the aim, but I apologize anyway.

Back to your problem.

Do you have another fully functioning PC available to you, where you can check whether the recovery disk is bootable ?
That will tell us whether the problem lies with your PC optical drive or with the CD itself, and point us to the next stage.
 
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Hi,

I am sorry too, I shouldn't have mixed terms like that, looking at it again I should not have been so loose with the terms, and of course realize that here people aren't psychic.

There is another machine but its running XP, I suppose I could test whether the media will at least boot on the laptop and give me a wrong version message, will do soon, as my partner uses it for business and would attempt to castrate at the mere mention of 'messing around' with it.

In response to coolname007, the boot sequence was indeed CD first, USB second, nothing for the HDD, second time around, HDD third in sequence..

Most frustrating.
 
Try putting your HDD second in the boot order, instead of third, with the CD drive as first, and see if the same thing happens that you mentioned in the first post. :wink:
 
What exactly goes onto the bootable disc?

I've read through this thread - the problem is what I got was two things (see attachment):

1. a .iso file (approximately 12K is size), and
2. a zip file (approximately 152 mb in size).

Perhaps I didn't do the download correctly, but there are a couple of problems:

a. simply putting the .iso file on the CD without the contents of the .zip file doesn't make sense. That's why he's talking about extraction, I suspect.

b. the ImgBurn program doesn't seem to recognize a .iso file as one worth of downloading.

Dave Smith
 

Attachments

  • BootTrack.doc
    164.5 KB · Views: 1
Dave, the "zip" file you see isn't actually a zip file. It's the ISO file that you want. Open this with ImgBurn.
 
Select the option to burn the image to disc. See here for screenshots. Do not attempt to extract or burn the .iso file as a whole to disc, as imgburn well take care of this.
 
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