Windows Tools, Help & Guides

If you own a netbook and don’t have an optical (CD/DVD/Bluray) drive, you may find you run in to trouble when trying to repair your PC in the event of an operating system failure. Yes, Windows 7 can fail but I’m yet to see it happen. If you want to be prepared, create a bootable drive today! In this guide, you’ll learn the following:

1. Where to download a system repair ISO in Windows 7.
2. How to prepare your USB drive for the repair ISO.
3. How to boot from your USB repair drive.
4. What can you do with a repair disc?

Note: You’ll need a USB drive with a capacity of at least 256MB to store the repair files.

Download a Windows 7 Repair ISO

Download the Windows 7 repair ISO here. (Looking for a Windows Vista repair disc?)

Create a Bootable Repair Disc

To create a bootable repair disc, follow the instructions in this guide. Note: You’ll need at least a 256MB USB drive for the repair files.

How to boot from your USB repair drive

To boot from your USB repair drive:

1. Shut down your PC.

2. Insert your bootable repair USB drive.

3. Power on your PC.

4. When your BIOS is loading (if you have a brand-name PC, this is usually when you can see the brand’s logo), press the key that loads the boot options menu (this is usually displayed as an option on the screen and is typically the ESC key.)

5. Arrow down to “Removable Media” / “USB Media” etc. and press Enter.

6. The recovery software will take some time to load:

7. Now select your default keyboard layout:

8. After the software detects your installation of Windows 7, click Next:

What Can You Do with a Repair Disc?

A repair disc cannot be used to reinstall Windows but can perform many repair tasks. Here is just a small list of what you can do with a repair disc:

1. Startup Repair
2. System Restore
3. System Image Recovery
4. Windows Memory Diagnostic
5. Command Prompt

The most commonly used function (for me at least) is the Startup Repair. I use this when I get an error message like “NTLDR Missing”, “Unable to boot” etc. The startup repair checks the MBR, GPT etc for common errors and repairs them.

If you cannot boot into Windows because of corrupted settings, a virus etc, then you may find using a previously-created System Restore point will help you get back to Windows.

If you created a system image using Backup and Restore, you can use it to completely restore your computer to a previous state.

The memory diagnostic is used to check for bad memory sectors (more about the memory diagnostic tool.)

Finally, the command prompt can do (almost) anything the full command prompt can do while using Windows. This can be very useful to run tools like chkdsk to find out why your hard drive is suddenly not working.

For what functions have you used a system repair disc?