How To Create A System Repair Disc For Windows 7 & Windows 8

Did you know that Windows is able to create a system recovery disc filled with recovery tools that will come in handy when your computer crashes? With the help of the "Create a System Repair Disc" wizard, you can burn a CD or DVD that you can boot from when Windows no longer works well. Here's how to create this disc in both Windows 7 and Windows 8.

How to Start the Wizard for Creating a System Repair Disc in Windows 7

In Windows 7, you can start the "Create a System Repair Disc" wizard using multiple methods. One of them is to go to "Start Menu -> All Programs -> Maintenance -> Create a System Repair Disc".

System Repair Disc, Recovery, Tools, Windows 7, Windows 8

You can also find it by going to "Control Panel -> System and Security -> Backup and Restore. In the column on the left, click "Create a system repair disc".

The "Create a system repair disc" wizard is started.

How to Start the Wizard for Creating a System Repair Disc in Windows 8

In Windows 8, things are a bit more complex. Unfortunately, Microsoft is slowly but sure phasing out the Backup and Restore tools from Windows 7, including the Create a System Repair Disc wizard.

To find it, go to the Start screen and search for file recovery. Then, filter by Settingsand click or tap Windows 7 File Recovery.

Alternatively, you can go to the Control Panel and search for file recovery and click or tap Windows 7 File Recovery.

In the Windows 7 File Recovery window, click "Create a system repair disc" in the column on the left.

The "Create a system repair disc" wizard is started.

IMPORTANT: In Windows 8.1 this tool no longer exists and cannot be used. Windows 8.1 has newer tools for creating recovery drives, which will be covered in separate tutorials.

How to Use the Create a System Repair Disc Wizard

Insert a blank CD or DVD into the optical drive, select that drive and click or tap Create disc. An empty CD should be enough for a System Repair Disc, given the fact that the space required is about 223MB for Windows 8 and less for Windows 7.

NOTE: If you are prompted to insert a Windows installation disc, it means that the files needed to create the system repair disc cannot be found on your computer. You need to insert the Windows installation disc first and the necessary files will be copied. The burning process will resume once this is done. If you have only one optical drive, you will need to be careful to switch the discs between them.

Windows is creating the disc. The process will take a bit of time.

After the disc is finalized, a pop-up window is displayed asking you to label the disc, so that you know what you will find on it. Do as instructed and click or tap Close.

In the "Create a system repair disc" wizard, click or tap OK to finish.

The repair disc is created. I recommend that you reboot your computer, and boot from it to check if the disc works correctly. There's no need to use it, since your computer is working fine. You are just checking that you can boot from it and use it when required.

NOTE: : In order to boot from a CD/DVD, the optical drive has to be the first device in the "Boot Device Order" section of the computer's BIOS.

What You'll Find on a System Repair Disc?

The system repair disc for Windows 8 is bigger than for Windows 7 because it includes more tools. With the system repair disc for Windows 8 you can use the Refresh and Reset features available in this operating system.

On both system repair discs you can access System Restore, the Command Prompt, recover Windows using a specific system image and use the available automatic repair tools.