Repair DVD Created by Win7 Home Premium Not Bootable?

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For whatever reason, it seems the Repair Disk (DVD) that Win7 creates is not bootable. I've tried every option on the boot menu and no dice. I even ordered copies of Repair/Install media from HP and I can boot from the one to re-image back to factory defaults, but not the repair DVD. Am I missing something?

I do have USB Recovery media from Windows7 Professional that the desktop will boot from. But as soon as I choose the "Repair" option after booting fro the USB drive the software will not allow me to run a "Repair" from a Win7 Professional boot-device on a Win7 Home Premium system.

My net-net goal it to have bootable Win7 Home Premium media, so I can restore back to a recovery image, and backup, I did about a month ago.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You can make your own bootable W7 Home Premium 64 installation/repair DVD or USB from the link below, toward the bottom of the page.

https://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-7-home-premium-free-download-iso-32-bit-64...

Download the ISO file, and use the tool that I zipped up and attached below to transfer the ISO file to a DVD or USB flash drive so that it is bootable.

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Hi Paul. Thanks but the link looks like it's full Win 7 Home Professional (which I have on DVDs that work and I even used to re-image back to factory defaults). What I need it just a bootable DVD or USB Win7 Home Professional  Repair disk ( USB or DVD), so I can restore back to the image I have saved on an external hard drive from a month ago (about a week before the blue-screen-of-death).

I start the recover from a specific image process and steps from windows and it gets to a point (after finding the image I want to restore from and rebooting) where a bootable repair disk (DVD preferred, but think bootable USB would work too) is required. And of course the Win7 repair disk I create from Windows itself, it not bootable (weird).

Any thoughts and thanks?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

The link I posted is for a W7 Home Premium ISO file.

It does make a full installation disk, but when you get to the Install Now screen, on the lower left side of the screen is a 'Repair your computer' option that you can use to try and repair your W7 installation.

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Thanks but Malware was detected, and blocked, when I tried to download the .ISO file.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Interesting...

Many forum members have downloaded and used that file to create W7 Home Premium installation media, and no one has reported that issue.

As a matter of fact, I just downloaded the 64 bit file myself using Microsoft Edge on W10, with the standard Windows defender antivirus, and it downloaded just fine.

No malware reported.  I attached a screen print of the downloaded file.

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HI Paul,

Thanks much. I did manage to download the .ISO file without it being flagged (actually, turns out it was the site) as having malware present. Not that I'm not "totally OK" with moving forward with booting from the DVD and using the repair to restore my last image backup, but since I did just download a file from someone I don't personally know (network -security is my area of expertise) but  any idea how that site can let, well anybody, download Win7 without confirming the software key?

Thank again!

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

All I know is that many forum members have used that ISO file to reinstall W7 and no one has reported any problems with it.

I scanned the file for viruses and couldn't find any, and I compared the file size with the one you get from Microsoft, and it is the same size.

There is no sure fire way for us casual users to check the integrity of the file that I know of.

Microsoft used to allow anyone to download the W7 ISO files from their site, and then someone at Microsoft had the bright idea that the public should not be allowed to download ISO files with OEM product keys, since there is no way of telling if you are going to use the OEM key to reinstall W7 on the PC the key is affixed to, or if the person was going to illegally use the OEM key to install W7 on a different PC, which is a violation of the OEM licensing rules.

That is why this all came to pass.

I am very surprised that Microsoft hasn't pushed to shut that site down, since they don't want their files to be downloaded from any other source.

That download site has been around for many years.

Your only other option would be to buy a genuine W7 Home Premium installation disk from somewhere like eBay.

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Interesting and appreciate the info. Yea, having an OEM copy of Win7 has proved to be cumbersome (can't be validated by a similar location on Microsoft.com that's used to download software). Kind of a PITA.

It's restoring from my last backup, so hopefully in a few hours everything will be back to "as it was" and will not have a true-tested way of recovering windows. I also have a .BAT file I use for just backing up files under my username. But that's for "after" getting it back to the state it was in.