How to Make a Windows 7 or Vista Repair Disk If You Don’t Have One

If you bought your computer with Windows 7 or Vista pre-installed, you most likely don’t have a regular Windows repair disc. What you do have is some crappy disc from the manufacturer that totally wipes your computer back to factory settings. What if you just want to run Startup repair off the install cd without losing all your settings?

Windows 7 Users: Click Here to Learn How to Create a System Repair Disc for Free
 
It turns out that Microsoft is going to let you create your own Windows 7 or Vista repair disc when Service Pack 1 comes out in a month or so. If you can’t wait that long, the nice people over at Neosmart have created their own Windows 7 or Vista Repair Disc available for download. Update: it looks like the discs are no longer free.
The file is an ISO image file… if you are familiar then skip to the link, otherwise we’ve also got instructions on how to create a CD from the ISO file.
Burn Windows 7 or Vista Recovery Disc ISO to CD
You may already have a tool to do this such as Nero, but the best tool available for burning ISOs is ImgBurn, a freeware utility that does nothing else but burn ISO images, and it does it well.
Open up ImgBurn, and then click on the “Browse for a file” button, selecting the file you downloaded from Neosmart.

Put a blank CD into the drive, and then click the big Write button.

That’s about all there is to it… you now have your very own Vista Recovery CD.
Download ImgBurn from imgburn.com
Download Windows 7 or Vista Recovery Disc from neosmart.net