Windows 7 Restore Windows 7 to factory settings without OEM disk

[alexdc]

Hi,

A friend of mine has a rather bad virus that I've given up dealing with. I have backed up all of her files and wished to install a fresh version of the 7 OS, however her laptop did not come with a 7 OEM disk. I hate going through the process of hunting down drivers (and I can never find all of the damn things no matter how hard I try) so I was wondering if there was some feature that 7 provided that would allow me to use the current operating system to perform a fresh OEM install.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Windows7HelpGuy]

Well, I'm not to sure, but you could always go to the computer's brand website to get the drivers, that's what I did when I installed windows 7 on my desktop. Does she have a recovery disk, because if so it may have her drivers already set up?
Not to sure, but if she has a bad virus you need to go through with new installation and just pry that virus hasn't infected her hard drive or other parts of her computer.

 

[TorrentG]

Hi there. Welcome to the forums.

No, that would actually defeat the entire purpose of a clean install anyhow.

Drivers are simple to find. Type the name of the manufacturer into Google and on ya go.

You'll want to wipe the HDD clean with a low level format tool before proceeding to install Windows again. You can install from any Windows 7 DVD and then use the key that is currently on the machine now.

 

[toddwilson]

Just another point to consider....
Most laptops come with a recovery partition on the hard drive
When there is a recovery option, you can burn the files onto dvd's or usb drive and format and reinstall the OS from there
I use this feature on my Toshiba laptop and it is very easy to do
Good luck

 

[Joe S]

Trouble is most people forget to do this! It's the first thing I did on my HP desktop once connected to web, registered and got updates.
Joe