Reinstall Preinstalled Windows 7 on a Toshiba Laptop

windows-7 reinstall toshiba-laptop

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Solution 1

Here are instructions (found here) for going back to factory fresh software instance for Toshiba laptops:

To restore the original factory software image on your computer follow these steps:

Make sure the computer is turned off ("Shut-down" from the Windows Start menu)
Remove any peripherals such an external mouse, keyboard, monitor, USB flash drive etc.
Make sure the AC Adapter is plugged in and working.
Press and hold down the 0 (zero) key on the keyboard while powering on the computer.
Release it when the recovery warning screen appears.
If the recovery process offers a choice of Operating Systems, select the appropriate one for you.
A warning screen appears, stating that when the recovery is executed all data will be deleted and rewritten.
Click Yes to continue.
When the Toshiba Recovery Wizard opens select "Recovery of Factory Software" or the appropriate option for your needs.
Continue to follow the directions restarting as necessary.

Solution 2

But there's no disk because windows came preinstalled.

You are expected to make your own recovery discs with the supplied "Toshiba Recovery Media Creator" utility.

I've also read online that a lot of times preinstalled windows will have a recovery partition that you can access by holding down Alt+F10 but this doesn't seem to be working.

The Toshiba User's Guide says:

While powering on your computer, press the F12 key when the initial TOSHIBA screen displays.

The boot menu appears.

Using the arrow keys to scroll down, select the HDD Recovery option, and then press the ENTER key.

A warning screen should appear.

If you type "yes", then you should get to the Toshiba Recovery Wizard screen.

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Grzegorz Łuszczek

I have been a senior developer with a focus on architecture, simplicity, and building effective teams for over ten years. As a director at Surge consulting I was involved in many operational duties and decisions and - in addition to software development duties - designed and implemented an interview processes and was involved in community building that saw it grow from 20 to about 350 developers and through an acquisition. I was then CTO setting up a dev shop at working closely with graduates of a coding bootcamp on both project work and helping them establish careers in the industry. Currently a Director of Engineering at findhelp.org your search engine for finding social services. I speak at conferences, have mentored dozens of software devs, have written popular articles, and been interviewed for a variety of podcasts and publications. I suppose that makes me an industry leader. I'm particularly interesting in companies that allow remote work and can check one or more of the following boxes: Product companies that help people in a non-trite manner (eg I'm not super interested in the next greatest way to get food delivered) Product companies that make developer or productivity tooling Funded startups that need a technical co-founder Functional programming (especially Clojure or Elixir) Companies trying to do something interesting with WebAssembly

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Grzegorz Łuszczek almost 2 years

I'm having problems with a Toshiba Satellite L745 which came preinstalled with Windows 7 (According to the product key label on the bottom Home Premium QA).

Basically it is freezing whenever updates run and sometimes when they don't. System recovery doesn't seem to be helping and I'm hoping to go nuclear and just reinstall windows.

But there's no disk because windows came preinstalled. I've also read online that a lot of times preinstalled windows will have a recovery partition that you can access by holding down Alt+F10 but this doesn't seem to be working. What is my next step?
- sawdust over 12 years
  
  Check if there is even a recovery partition on the HDD. Use Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Storage / Disk Management to view the partitions on the hard drive.
- Grzegorz Łuszczek over 12 years
  
  @sawdust I found another partition via F12 while booting. It had a repair windows option and no others. Selecting that ground away for a while and...then nothing