Creating a Windows 7 repair disc is fairly simple and can be prepared in a couple of minutes without the help of third-party software. For those who are new to Windows 7 and haven’t heard about repair disc, it lets you resolve various Windows 7 installation issues without having to boot into Windows but can’t be used to install or re-install Windows 7.
If you’re running Windows 7 on a netbook or notebook without an optical (CD/DVD) drive, you might want to create Windows 7 repair USB drive so that you can easily repair Windows 7 if ever your PC fails to boot. As you likely know, since Windows 7 doesn’t let you create a USB drive containing repair files, we need to create a Windows 7 repair disc first, transfer all files to a USB drive, and then make it bootable.
In this guide, we’re going to walk you through steps that you need to follow in order to prepare a bootable Windows 7 repair USB drive.
Preparing a USB drive containing Windows 7 repair files
Step 1: Turn on your PC and boot into Windows 7. If your PC isn’t booting, you need to try out some other methods as this guide assumes your Windows 7 PC is bootable.
Step 2: In the Start menu search box, type create a system repair disc, and then press enter key to open Create a system repair disc dialog.
NOTE: Your PC must have a CD/DVD drive in order to create a system repair disc.
Step 3: Once Create a system repair disc dialog appears, select your DVD drive, insert a blank CD/DVD into it, and then click Create disc button to begin preparing the repair disc.
NOTE: You can either use a CD or DVD to create the disc, as the total size of the repair disc is around 150 MB.
Step 4: Now that you have the repair CD/DVD, it’s time to connect your USB drive that you would like to use to repair your Windows 7 PC. Connect your USB drive and backup all data to a safe location as we need to format the drive in order to make it bootable.
Step 5: Visit this web page and download WindowsToUSB Lite software. WindowsToUSB Lite is a free tool designed to create bootable USB. If you’re wondering why we aren’t using a popular tool such as Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool or Rufus for this job, the catch with these popular tools is that they support creating a bootable USB from an ISO image and not from DVD.
Step 6: Launch WindowsToUSB Lite, select your USB drive, and then browse to the CD/DVD containing Windows 7 repair files.
Step 7: Finally, click the Start button and then click Yes button when you see a warning dialog to continue formatting the drive and prepare bootable USB.
That’s it! Once the USB drive is ready, you can use it repair your Windows 7 PC.
How to delete Windows 8 recovery partition and how to create Windows 8 recovery USB drive guides might also interest you.
Laurie says
It may be ages old but this at last clened up the laptop boot so thanks
Chris B says
Yeah, SearchProtect crap that even Symantec Endpoint could see. ggnextmap
Ryan says
Step 5 is misleading. That tool is only necessary if people want the SearchProtect PUA installed on their system. As is, it fails anyway. A freshly made Windows Repair CD is not seen and the tool states it can’t find the right files. It also could not see my thumb drive, though that may be due to the prior issue.
Lastly, using Rufus to “burn” the ISO to a USB thumbdrive works perfectly fine without the attempt at loading crapware on the users system. It boots up just like the CD/DVD would.
JohnB says
One important thing this article fails to mention: if you try to use WindowsToUSB Lite to create a Windows *repair* disc (which is what this aticle is all about), you’ll get an error message as follows:
“Please, check the installation package is correct. Necessary installation files not found. Do you want to ceate Bootable USB using selected installation package?”
Just choose “Yes” and it will create your USB repair disk just fine.
This happens because WindowsToUSB Lite is really designed to help you create a full Windows *installation* disc on a bootable USB, so it tries to be smart and checks the CD or ISO for the existence of the necessary setup files.
Julian says
Karl, haven’t you ever heard of using another computer? It’s hardly the author’s fault that you bought a Netbook without an optical drive. Alternatively, you can download a recovery disk ISO and write that to your USB drive.
Karl B. says
How stupid can you be, starting with “If you’re running Windows 7 on a netbook or notebook without an optical (CD/DVD) drive” then at step 2 “NOTE: Your PC must have a CD/DVD drive in order to create a system repair disc”
???