How can I restore my laptop from Windows 7 to its original Windows Vista recovery partition?

Question

I bought my Acer laptop 4 years ago with Vista Home Premium x86. It has a recovery partition that I have used successfully in the past to format everything and reinstall Windows to factory settings.

I have since upgraded to Windows 7, but I now need to get back to my original installation. Not sure what it's called, but I can successfully get into this recovery thingy:

However, when I click the third option (for me I think it says 'Windows Image Recovery' or something like that) it tells me that it can't find any images to recover from :(

I have checked and I don't have a windows.old that I can recover from either.

One final note, if I launch diskmgmt.msc, these are the partitions:

1. Why is the first partition shaded? Does that mean anything?
2. Both of the 'unlettered' partitions are 100% empty. Did the Windows 7 upgrade process format my Vista system recovery partition?!

And finally:

• How can I get back to my factory settings?

EDIT: I did see this question, but neither of the answers apply to my situation.

Edit to address jdh's answer:

From what I can tell, I never get the option to boot the Vista recovery partition. After hitting F10, I get this screen, except it's partition 2, and I don't have the IN/MINT bit:

I hit Escape, and then I get this screen, except without Ubuntu listed, and without the auto-countdown thing:

I hit F8, and then I get this screen:

I hit Enter on the first option, I end up at the screen in the first screen shot. As I said, from there I click the third option, and it fails to find the image, which I guess makes sense if it's only looking for a Windows 7 recovery. So I either need to make the Windows 7 tool see the Vista recovery partition, or I need the boot loader (?) to let me select Vista earlier in the process.

Any ideas?

Solution

It appears that your OEM partitions were somehow wiped, possibly in the Windows 7 installation. They're still there, but if they're empty there's nothing to restore to. If you really want to get back to Vista for whatever reason, your best option at this point is to just acquire an image of the Vista installation environment (I leave it to your discretion on how you find one) and use the License key that your laptop came with (It should be on a sticker attached to the base of the laptop) to reinstall Vista that way.

Comments

[Ramhound]

It looks like you formated your hdd at somepoint and wiped the recovery parition based on your description of the problem. Why exactly do you want to restore your backup instead of simply installing Vista yourself and using your cd-key?

[Cam Jackson]

@Ramhound I didn't get a Vista disc with my laptop, and I don't know what the license key is.

[Daniel R Hicks]

The license key should be on the sticker on the bottom of your laptop. And you didn't follow instructions and make a DVD backup of you recovery partition?

[Daniel R Hicks]

Reboot several times, hitting F10, and see if you can get into the recovery BIOS mode. Note that this is different from the standard BIOS mode, and the timing of the button push is a little tricky. If you can get into that BIOS mode there is a moderately confusing menu that may let you boot from the recovery partition (if it still exists). (This is not Windows Boot Manager.)

[Cam Jackson]

I think I understand everything you're saying, but I don't believe I'm being given any option to get into the Vista partition at any point. I've edit the question with some screenshots to show my boot process. I should mention that only the screenshot showing the 4 partitions is mine. The rest are from google, which is why I said that the exact text in the first screenshot doesn't match what I see. I believe the semantics are the same though.

[jdh]

ok, you didn't mention that you had loaded ubuntu at some point. In that case, that install probably repartitioned the disk to make space and blew away the original Acer recovery partition. That would explain why its no longer a boot option, and why you have two non-windows partitions (linux main and swap partitions). At this point, the only way to recover vista, is with the original Acer OEM windows Vista install DVD. (unless you made a backup disk image).

[Cam Jackson]

As I commented above, the screenshots aren't mine, I just got them from google so I wouldn't have to type everything out. I've written in the question how what I see differs from the pictures I've posted, including ' I get this screen, except without Ubuntu listed'. I haven't ever installed Ubuntu on this machine. Is there any way to determine for sure if my recovery partition is still in tact? If we assume for a moment that it is still in tact, is there any way I can get to it/boot it?