Windows 7 Restore and Recovery Tips: How to Recover Your Windows 7 Installation

Windows 7 Restore and Recovery Tips: How to Recover Your Windows 7 Installation
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Boldly Going Where None Have Gone Before

Windows 7 is still in its baby-steps beta phase, with what is assumed to be the first release candidate having made its mark in the land of torrents just last week. However, what happens when you encounter a problem with software that hasn’t been tried and tested yet in the field by those on the front lines testing the beta? You do the only logical thing – retreat and recover.

In this regard Windows 7 offers a bevy of recovering options – for this article, we’ll be analyzing the two most practical ones:

System Restore

If there’s one thing newer versions of Windows have incorporated astoundingly well, it is the ability to system restore to just about any point in the past. Now, so long as the problem you’ve been having is relatively recent, you’ll be able to be back in business in no time.

Just follow these steps to getting your system back to the way it’s supposed to be running:

1. Go to Start → Programs → Accessories → System Tools → System Restore

2. As a new feature in Windows 7, your computer analyzes the best point in the past to go to, in order to solve any issues you’re having – just be patient, it’ll take a second.

3. After the system restore tool has looked into your restore points, it’ll suggest the best one to return to → if you know that point is compromised, select the option to “see more restore points”, if the point is good however, initiate the system restore.

4. This next step can take a few minutes, so you might want to work on something else – your computer is rebuilding itself back to what it used to be before things went horribly wrong.

5. Assuming the restore went well, you should boot back up to find your desktop waiting for you and working well.

6. If the restore didn’t go well, you’ll want to go to our second featured way to restore Windows 7.

Ultimately, for those users who aren’t too familiar with computers, this method is user friendly and tends to work in about 75-80% of all cases. However, when you tinker with computers as much as I do (and I bet many of you do), this option simply isn’t enough, which is why you should try…

Making a Boot-Up CD (or USB Drive)

Diagnostically speaking, a boot CD or USB drive is the most valuable tool in your current arsenal for tackling your problem. Even more importantly, the boot CD also includes several tools that can fix and repair hard drives and networks – most important to helping you resolve the problem after you’ve diagnosed it.

There are two essential boot CDs you need to resolve any problem:

- The Ubuntu Boot CD: https://releases.ubuntu.com/intrepid/ (FAQ: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD)

- Ultimate Boot CD for Windows: https://www.ubcd4win.com/

The tools on the disk include everything necessary to run from the CD and continue your diagnosis of the computer’s problems. The pros are quite simple – it’s extremely simple to make, resolves practically any software related problem and works off a network as well.

If you’re hard-pressed for time, go for the System Restore before you make the LiveCD or the Boot CD. This will ensure that if the problem is easily fixable, it’ll get done quickly.