Problem Creating System Recovery Media

[Rob76365]

I was in the process of creating System Recovery Media. It called for 3 DVD's for the process. Disk 1 & 2 completed fine. When Disc 3 began the "Verify" function, it ejected the DVD and gave a window saying the function failed and that I should insert a new DVD. I did so and clicked OK. But then NOTHING happened. My compter sat for 30 minutes with nothing happening.

What do I do now. When I began this process, I had to agree to the fact that I could make this System Recovery Media only ONE TIME. I cannot start again.

Please Help,

Rob76365

[Rob76365]

Never Mind on this post. I finally figured it out.

Its a shame that the process isn't more user friendly when there is a problem. I mean... I paid some pretty big bucks for this laptop, (notebook), and for a guy who doesn't have a lot of those hard earned bucks, makes me disappointed that I have to "GUESS" at what to do, all the while HOPING I haven't done it wrong thus losing my ONE TIME CHANCE to create the System Recovery Media.

Just Sayin'

Rob 76365

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

Rob76365

Great that you figured it out -- but not everyone does, and this is one of the reasons I have come to rely on third-party backup/restore functions, as they offer a LOT more flexibility.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 10 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

[Rob76365]

Dean,

Thanks so much for your quick response and great information.

I will certainly try your approach.

Best Wishes

Rob76365