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I have a Dell XPS L702X laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit that was throwing a lot of BSODs and so I reinstalled Windows 7 from the DVD. After this had completed, I noticed that the machine was missing drivers for many major components (network adapter, USB, etc.). It now can't connect to the internet or read USB drives.

Then I noticed that the machine came with a way to restore it to factory image. Using the Backup & Restore feature didn't work because the new installation of Windows didn't recognize the Factory.wim file as one it had created. And to run a command line imagex you need to have the Win Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Win 7.

That's a 1.7 GB download and I can't connect to the internet from my home computer. Does AIK come by default with the clean install of Win 7? Is it on the reinstallation DVD?

So, is there a way to run a restore from the command line to force the wim file to restore Win 7 on my C: drive to its factory image?

Thanks.

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You only need a few files (<100mb) from that large WAIK install , I can upload them somewhere if my answer below does not get it restored. – Moab Feb 26 '12 at 16:27

2 Answers

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No, WAIK is not included with W7 install, there is a way to fire off the restore from the command line for Dell Vista installations, here are the instructions, might be a little different for W7 (folders might have different names, etc), see "Run PC Restore From a Microsoft Windows Vista DVD" section.

Boot from your Windows 7 DVD

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Click Command Prompt from the System Recovery Options window. In the Administrator window, type the following lines, pressing after each line.

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path d:\windows;d:\windows\system32

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d:

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CD Tools

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PCRestore

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In the Dell Factory Image Restore window, click Next.

In the Confirm Data Deletion window, click to select Yes, reformat hard drive and restore system software to factory condition, and then click Next. The message Factory image successfully restored! appears when the process is complete.

Click Finish to restart the system.

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Check this tutorial

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/7943-install-windows-7-fast-without-dvd-usb-device.html

You will have to use your facory.wim instead of install.wim(as mentioned in the tutorial)

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Can you please summarize the main steps from this tutorial in your answer? – slhck♦ Feb 26 '12 at 10:23

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