Hi, I originally purchased a computer with Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit preinstalled. I then upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, then used Anytime Upgrade to go to Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Now, when I have a problem, i have to use the recovery partition that recovers back to Vista Home x64, correct? I don't want to go back to Vista, i would like to update the HP OEM Recovery Partition to Windows 7 Ultimate, so that when i recover my computer, it automatically goes back to Windows 7 Ultimate x64 without any strings attached. More thorough explanation: I want to create or update my HP OEM Partition to Windows 7 Ultimate instead of me re-upgrading to 7 Home, then going through Anytime Upgrade, then going through all the updates, and then running the Windows 7 SP1 disk. I have searched for this topic on the forum and it hasn't given me any help. I don't want to create a mirror image or whatever, i just want to Upgrade the partition so that I don't have to jump through hoops again.
So you upgraded to 7? Well capture it and replace install.wim/swm in the recoverypartition if there's any. If not make your own using anarethos recoverytool.
Fair enough, but the problem is, I have to manually update the drivers inside the recovery partition if there are any. Aren't there any other files that differ from the Windows 7 DVD? What I know about the recovery partition is that it's basically a Vista DVD but with a custom driver package installed in it, and I can't access it and i get locked out: Recovery Partition Warning! This area of your hard drive (or partition) contains files used for your PC Recovery. Do not delete or alter these files. Any change to this partition could prevent any recovery later. Besides that, I get two files: HP_WSD(0).dat and HP_WSD.dat . I'll try out the anarethos recoverytool.
Not inside the recoverypartition but inside Install.wim the image that contains your windows version. Vista drivers might work on 7, so just upgrade to W7 & use imagex to capture it to a new Install.wim and replace the old one. Could be bit tricky if it works.
I just took a look at the anarethos, it isn't what I'm referring to. I want to be able to do these steps: 1. Press F11 to boot into OEM Recovery Console 2. Select recover to factory condition 3. Have it recover to Windows 7 Ult x64 with all the default drivers, like it was shipped with Windows 7 Ultimate. I want to have the original HP Gui, not startup repair and all that.
I'm with acrsn; take the simple approach. Use 7's Backup and Restore to create an image once you get your configuration the way you want it. In learning 7, I re-imaged with a 7 created image a bunch of times and all were perfect. I've used Acronis True Image Home 2010 a number of times and it performed beautifully. And, Acronis TIH has many bells and whistles in addition to imaging. Restoring one of my images takes about four to five minutes after booting from the Windows 7 Repair Disk. After re-imaging, the system reboots itself to take you to your login screen or straight into Windows if you've set it up that way. Not exactly jumping through hoops. I never could get an image on either DVD+R, DVD-R or DVD/RW, but putting the image on an external hard drive was a no brainer. Actually, so was putting an image on a second internal hard drive. 7 complains if you put the image on the same physical disk C: is on (in a different partition of course) but that does work also. With system images you can effective forget the recovery partition. In fact, using GPartEd I got rid of mine. I see no reason for them once system images are created. I have four images on every computer and a once a week a batch file creates a new image on a rotating weekly basis. Each computer has a USB hard drive and it's image is basically treated as an archive and seldom, if ever, updated.
Excellent, except.. is the Acronis Recovery Manager free? I'm downloading the True Image, but that's a trial, I'm worried that when the trial runs out, the recovery manager functionality will be stopped.
For use on the Acronis Home, i need a thorough, step through step process.. I got the full version, and I have no clue on how to use it.
I have ATIH 2010 and for the most part it's very intuitive; "Help" is an option on its "Home" tab and has supplied all the instructions I ever needed. If the "Help" function is too daunting, create the bootable disk and go from there. IIRC its options are focused more on disaster recovery and it can be used to both create and restore an image; it's very intuitive too. In fact, once you have the bootable disk, you don't need Acronis installed on you hard disk at all with respect to image creation and restoration. But you'd lose many options not having it as an installed program.
I've thought of something. If I upgrade to Windows 7 Home Prem, then to Ultimate, then install all the updates from HP and Windows Update, then i create the partition, wouldn't that be basically the same as an OEM partition?