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My daughter purchased an HP vista laptop w/win7 upgrade included. Performed the upgrade and something went sideways. She backed up her personal data. She wants to recover to vista but Win7 reports that recovery is broken. Restore doesn't work either. No vista disks but has a key. Contacted MS who passed off the problem to HP. No joy with HP. My thought was to format and reinstall vista but she has no disks. Suggestions?

what exactly isn't working?

Did you try to do a fresh install with the win 7 upgrade disk? When I bought my Dell laptop in 2007 I got the vista upgrade for it. The upgrade is just a full install disk, maybe the win 7 one is the same?

If you have no installation disks (everyone should demand them with a new computer) then you are stuck and have to either buy a new OS or get HP to help you. Also, have you tried the on disk restore if it has one? Press a key before boot up like F2 or Delete, it should give you the option on the screen to restore everything as if you had just bought it.

Yeah, the upgrades are spotty at best these days, not like upgrading from 95 to 98 was. You would be better off using the Windows 7 setup to format the drive and run a new install.

You can get a restore disk from HP may cost you shipping at most. I order one from compaq once cost was 10.00 US dollars. I also got an upgrade option for the Dell just upgraded it had to remove several programs before doing it. Fresh installs are best when upgrading.

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fliptw wrote:what exactly isn't working?

Sorry, not sure.

Krom wrote:Yeah, the upgrades are spotty at best these days, not like upgrading from 95 to 98 was. You would be better off using the Windows 7 setup to format the drive and run a new install.

So you think the win7 upgrade disk will also work as a new install? It will probably look for a previous install of vista maybe? Since she has the vista key it should work.
Fingers crossed.

It should be possible because in the event the user is upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7, a new install is required because the two OSes were so different it was impossible for Microsoft to code an in-place upgrade.

At the very least, if you have a copy of XP that will pass WGA sitting around anywhere in the house, you can format the drive and install / activate XP to kickstart the Windows 7 upgrade again. If you do it this way, it may even be worth your time to create a ghost image of XP once it is installed and activated to keep around in the event you ever need to do it over again.

Linux is free.

(Sorry, I had to)

VonVulcan wrote: So you think the win7 upgrade disk will also work as a new install? It will probably look for a previous install of vista maybe? Since she has the vista key it should work.
Fingers crossed.

Definitely try it. Pop that win 7 disk in and boot the computer up from dvd. My vista upgrade disk is a full installer. You got a key for the upgrade disk right? Usually on a sticker on the manual or disk sleeve

Xamindar wrote:

VonVulcan wrote: So you think the win7 upgrade disk will also work as a new install? It will probably look for a previous install of vista maybe? Since she has the vista key it should work.
Fingers crossed.

Definitely try it. Pop that win 7 disk in and boot the computer up from dvd. My vista upgrade disk is a full installer. You got a key for the upgrade disk right? Usually on a sticker on the manual or disk sleeve

She should have a key for both. Bear in mind the win7 was sold as an upgrade add-on... if that matters.

I'll pass it along.

VonVulcan wrote: She should have a key for both. Bear in mind the win7 was sold as an upgrade add-on... if that matters.

I'll pass it along.

Yeah, my vista upgrade was an "upgrade option" from Dell. It only cost me around $10 to cover the cost of shipping it to me when Vista was released. So I think we are talking about the same kinda thing, as long as they haven't decided to get cheap and people off.

I bought a Compaq CQ5110F desktop machine with 32-bit Vista that qualified for the \"free\" ($16 including tax) Win7 32-bit Home Premium upgrade about ten days before the retail release of Win7. Literally, the first thing I did when I turned it on was to make the one allowed copy of the Restore DVDs that HP/Compaq permits, and then I made two backups of that. My box has a 12GB unhidden Restore partition in addition to the regular C: partition.

I did an in-place upgrade to Win7 without any issues, but I was careful to do a factory-restore of the Vista partition before starting the upgrade. I also followed HP/Compaq's instructions to the letter. The process involves not just the Windows upgrade DVD, but there is an HP Upgrade Assistant DVD that is used to prepare the machine as well. Some of the third-party software that HP provides is not Win7-ready, so it has to be replaced or deleted before the upgrade.

The Win7 Upgrade DVD has the following files/folders in the main directory:

43 2009-07-14 05:26 autorun.inf
504 2009-07-27 00:14 boot
383562 2009-07-14 05:26 bootmgr
100 2009-07-27 00:14 efi
111880 2009-07-14 05:26 setup.exe
11444 2009-07-27 02:41 sources
200 2009-07-27 00:15 support
92 2009-07-27 00:15 upgrade

I don't own a Win7 retail or upgrade disc, so I can't say how that compares to one of those two, but perhaps somebody else can say.

I noticed that somebody in the HP forums mentioned that it cost $30.00+ for a set of Vista restore disks for their machine, so it pays to make your Restore DVD set as quickly as possible. If you can log into the Restore partition, you should be able to make the Restore DVDs and/or restore the primary partition to its factory state. My Vista Restore partition is still present after the Win7 upgrade.

Good luck with the cleanup.

VonVulcan wrote:So you think the win7 upgrade disk will also work as a new install?

I had to upgrade two vista systems to windows 7 recently. Both went pretty smoothly, thank goodness. But yes, the windows 7 upgrade disks from HP are full install disks. When I first put mine in they asked whether I wanted to upgrade or do a full install.

snoopy wrote:Linux is free.

Preach it brother! Preach it!!!!

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu linux is a breeze to install, it works as a dual boot system, so you can always go back to windows whenever you need to (which isn't very often).

I'm running dual boot Ubuntu systems on my computer, my wife's computer, and the family laptop. I even installed Ubuntu on my parents computer and THEY are now using linux occasionally.

Jeeez, should I JUST flush all that MS money?

I just did a fresh install of Ubuntu 64bit in an evening, from starting to backup my old install, to having the new install up and running with all of my settings restored.

Really, stop feeding MS... please.

No…some of us like to work with our computers…not on them.

The only reason a fresh Windows install usually takes so long is because the programs take quite a while to put back on the system. That's an issue you'd face with any OS, though. I've seen the actual setup phase finish in as little as 20 minutes (though it is usually longer than this). Applying updates may take a varying length of time - depends on your internet connection and how old the media you're installing from is.