Need help with Vista ..

I have an Acer laptop which has a hidden recovery partition called PQSERVICE of around 10 GB.I just unhid the partition and explored a lot of files in there.They are supposed to comprise vista installation files + preinstalled software files + recovery management stuff + drivers .My problem is I want to burn a retail windows vista installation cd from this partition but I dont know which are the correct files from all the other bloatware.There isnt a direct ISO image that I can write onto a disc using nero..its a bunch of smaller files of different formats like swm , wim etc all spread around in different folders.

Anyone know how I can locate the right files needed to create the iso image for a bootable windows cd ?

Thanks.

 

The problem with using acer ecovery management is that whatever cd you burn through it , when using it later for a reinstall - it wipes out entire hard disk including the two partitions C and D that I created from the original 300 gb single partition which was the factory state.That means even the data on D is gone.So I only want to make a normal vista cd (that affects only the C drive on reinstall) and it is only possible manually by looking through partition and creating image of relevant files there.Am I right?

 

You will find it completely impossible to create a Vista installation disk from the files in the recovery partition. As plodr has said, you need to get an imaging program like Acronis (or the free Easeus Todo) and create and store elsewhere regular images of your Vista partition, just keeping the last two or three. Using a bootable CD you create with the imaging program you can at any time restore your C drive to an earlier state, even to a replacement hard drive. As the image includes not only Vista but all its updates and all your installed software and configuration files, as well as any personal files it is far more useful than a Vista installation disk.

 

Alright so I downloaded the windows vista home premium iso file from a torrent site.Looks clean this file - around 2.5 gb
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4811357

Can anyone tell me how to make a vista installation dvd from this iso file? I am a beginner in this stuff.Any link for newbies ?

Thanks.

 

Looks like a clean torrent. You are aware though that you got the 32-bit version - just checking.
To burn the iso image, get a free program called imgburn. It's self explanatory. Use it to burn the image to a dvd-r. You can get imgburn from here:
http://www.imgburn.com/

 

Okay grateful for the help y'all :-D

 

I got 3 questions..

1)Does the backup image (made by acronis software) of say a clean install of vista with some extra programs (lightweight) and some required updates..can they all fit in one DVD ?
2) Is there an equivalent freeware ?
3) This is probably a stupid question but my dvd drive is actually a bit screwed up , I was wondering if a reinstall of vista is possible from a mounted iso image stored in D: drive or some other partition ?


PS. TimW thanks for the effort mate.I owe you one for that ! :wine

 

No. A Vista backup will require 3-4 DVDs, possibly more later as it grows. The usual storage medium is a decent external drive, say 500GB.

Acronis isn't free, but Easeus Todo is. It doesn't give you quite as much functionality as Acronis but does the basic task of backing up your system drive, and giving you the means to restore it when necessary, very capably.

 

What about question3 earthling ? I modified that post.

 

You can't do it with an iso from a hard disk partition AFAIK, not with the MS boot manager anyway, but it can be done using a bootable flash drive. Not something I've ever done myself though, so would have to leave that one to someone who has.

 

hey I downloaded the vista ISO but the file shows as a 2.5 gb zip file !! I extracted it and it was only several folders and a setup.exe !! So does this mean it wasn't an Iso file in the first place and cannot be burned to a disk ? .. weird !!

 

What do I do ? The file shows as winzip.

TimW did you get iso when you downloaded it ?

 

I don't use P2P so sorry, can't help. TimW should be around later though.

 

I just looked, and the ONLY file that's downloaded IS an .ISO file. It reads as a ZIP file because ISO is a type of "compressed" file that can be extracted... delete the extracted files (you don't need them and they won't burn into a properly bootable DVD anyway), and instead of extracting the file, right click it and there should be an option to burn using ImgBurn (provided you installed ImgBurn).

 

I'm almost there.Thanks mscmc and the others.

One final question - does my iso size look suspiciously small ? I checked online on other sites and most threads say vista home premium (32 bit) is around 3.2 GB.

 

No, he's talking about the iso being small. It's only 2 GB and change, where other Vista ISO's are 3 GB and change.

 

OH NO !! Took a lot of time to download that file.So I shouldn't go ahead with the re-install ? Are you sure it wont work .. the comments on the torrent seemed okay

 

Use torrents at your own risk.

That said, the torrent does seem a bit small. A typical Vista ISO will be ~3GB. I have a few on my machine that I just checked, they're about 3.1GB.

 

As long as we're posting torrent links in here, I'd suggest this one (scan before using, of course), looks much more legit:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5651515/Windows_Vista_Home_Premium_32bit

EDIT: Might I add, it's VERY important to select the SLOWEST burn speed possible when creating the DVD. I've had several corrupted disks from burning them too fast, and others can attest to this fact as well.

 

Does it work TimW ? The new torrent I mean

 

By use at your own risk, I mean not only are you possibly inviting malware, but ALSO a lot of Windows .ISO files in the torrent world have been modified, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad... it's just hard to know.

 

ya well I finally got my hands on a pirated copy of vista ultimate and installed that.Unfortunately the MS security essentials doesn't install or update because the windows isn't genuine.Anyway to bypass that ?

 

No one at MG will help with licence busting. Get a legit copy.