Windows back up and reinstalling Win 7

Hello,

My laptop is running quite slowly and I get a black screen on start-up that tells me I have a disk error (but disk checking fails).

I've run Windows Back Up on an external hard drive.

If I reinstall Windows clean, is it likely to resolve my problems? Will restoring a system image create the same issues again?

And is Windows Back Up a safe way of restoring? As a novice, I'm petrifed about losing files, programmes, playlists and email accounts!

Any advice would be great. Thanks!

 

Greetings, quinlad...

IMO, if you have the machine's restore disks (or if there's a restore partition in storage), use them to format/reinstall Windows...as far as I know, Windows Backup, even though it has the option to save all files on a drive, doesn't create an image of your operating system, which would be the proper procedure...since you've already saved your documents and files, you should be fine...

Keep us posted...

 

Disk checking fails? Do you mean you run a test and get a report saying the disk is faulty, or that the test will not run, or what? I'd want to be sure my hard drive is OK before reinstalling Windows.

 

Good point, AFVet - assumed op meant the check failed to find anything - by all means, check out the hardware...

My bad...

 

Unlike Backup in previous versions, in Win 7 you can backup just files or you can image the entire system. So it depends on what type of backup the OP chose.

 

If you really mean a clean install from an installation disk then yes it will, subject to your hardware being OK, which it might not be from what you say

An image puts the system back to exactly how it was at the time the image was created, so it depends on how it was at that time.

Study the backup articles in Windows Help as they are very informative. Subject to hardware failures again it should work fine, but you must first save any stuff of your own that postdates the backup or you will lose it.

 

Hi guys,

Thanks for your advvice so far. Very helpful.

Not sure how healthy the disk is - when I start, I'm told on a black screen the disk may have errors and needs to be checked.
When it tries a disk check, I'm told (and this is from memory) that autocheck can't access the drive because of a recent software installation (this has been going on for about 3 months though). And that I should restore the computer to the point before that installation.

Because I'm an idiot, I hadn't created a restore point.

I'm on Windows 7 so I have backed up a system image to an external HD - but only did that today. Performance problems pre-dated that.

Does that mean a reinstall and a system restore using that image will make no difference?

How doomed am I?

 

An image only created today will have all the problems you have today, so it's effectively useless.

But do you have either an installation disk or a recovery disk?

 

Yes, I've got the installation disk. I'm guessing it's just a matter of saving my files and then doing a reinstall?

Just thought imaging would avoid the risk of me missing something. But if it's useless, I'll take the longer route.

 

What I'm not sure about with Windows 7 Backup is whether you can extract individual files from an image, as you can with Acronis and a few other imaging programs. If you can then it would indeed ensure you don't lose anything, but I have a feeling it isn't possible.

My advice would be to forget Windows Backup and install Easeus ToDo Backup. This is a free Acronis lookalike with which you can mount images in Explorer and copy files from them. Then do your clean install free of worries about permanently losing anything.

 

If you know what program you installed, you might try uninstalling the program and see what happens.

Jerry