With Windows 7 released and currently making its way to shelves in time for the holiday season, we've taken this opportunity to upgrade our copy of the official Windows System Recovery Discs for compatibility with Windows 7. If you're like most PC users, you probably got Windows 7 with a new PC or laptop. And if you're like 99% of the population, you get your new machines from one of the major manufacturers. Dell, Acer, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo; who all have one thing in common: they don't give you a real Windows 7 installation disc with your purchase. Instead, they bundle what they call a "recovery disc" (that's if you're lucky - otherwise you'll have a recovery partition instead) with your machine and leave it at that. It doesn't matter that you just paid a thousand dollars for a machine that comes with a valid Windows 7 license - your computer manufacturer just don't want to spend the money (or perhaps take on the responsibility) of giving you a Windows 7 installation DVD to accompany your expensive purchase.
The problem is, with Windows 7, the installation media serves more than one purpose. It's not just a way to get Windows installed, it's also the only way of recovering a borked installation. The Windows 7 DVD has a complete "recovery center" that provides you with the option of recovering your system via automated recovery (searches for problems and attempts to fix them automatically), rolling-back to a system restore point, recovering a full PC backup, or accessing a command-line recovery console for advanced recovery purposes.
Thankfully, Microsoft seems to have realized this problem, and have thankfully made a recovery disc for this purpose. It contains the contents of the Windows 7 DVD's "recovery center," as we've come to refer to it. It cannot be used to install or reinstall Windows 7, and just serves as a Windows PE interface to recovering your PC. Technically, one could re-create this installation media with freely-downloadable media from Microsoft (namely the Microsoft WAIK kit, a multi-gigabyte download); but it's damn-decent of Microsoft to make this available to Windows' users who might not be capable of creating such a thing on their own. You can make your own copy from Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, but now you have an easier alternative.
NeoSmart Technologies is hosting a copy of the Windows 7 Recovery Disc for your convenience. It's a 143 MiB download (165 MiB for the 64-bit version), and in the standard ISO format, ready to burned directly to a CD or DVD. Don't wait until your PC crashes to download a copy! Download and burn your recovery disc today, so that when the time comes, you'll be ready!
What it does: The Windows 7 Recovery Disc can be used to access a system recovery menu, giving you options of using System Restore, Complete PC Backup, automated system repair, and a command-line prompt for manual advanced recovery.
What it doesn't do: You cannot use the Windows 7 Recovery Disc to re-install Windows - it only fixes (not replaces!) Windows.
Why you need it: If you bought your PC from a major retailer, you didn't get this CD with your hefty purchase.
Download Links
Windows 7 Recovery Disc 32-Bit (x86) Edition
http://neosmart.net/downloads/miscellania/Windows%207%2032-bit%20Repair%20Disc.torrent
Windows 7 Recovery Disc 64-Bit (x64) Edition
http://neosmart.net/downloads/miscellania/Windows%207%2064-bit%20Repair%20Disc.torrent
Please note that the above links point to .torrent files. Torrent files are like a shortcut, they tell a download manager on your PC where to download the actual files from. Downloading large & important system files with torrents is highly recommended since torrents are protected against corrupt downloads and tend to be faster when well-shared.
(All torrents are currently being seeded by 100mbps servers, they should be blazing fast).
You can download the Windows Vista recovery discs from here.
Instructions
1.Download the appropriate .torrent file from above that corresponds to the version of Windows 7 you have installed.
2.Download and run µTorrent.
3.Open the .torrent file you downloaded with µTorrent. (File -> Add Torrent)
4.Select where you want µTorrent to save the 7 Recovery Disc.
5.Wait for it to download.
6.Burn the .iso file that µTorrent downloaded to a CD using these instructions.
7.When you want to use the recovery center, put the CD in your drive and boot from it. This is usually done by pressing F8 at startup, or changing the boot drive order in the BIOS
