Can W8.1 create System Repair Disc vs. a Thumb Drive?

[Mike Lynch]

I am looking for the equivalent of a Windows-7 Pro System Repair Disc rather than a Windows-8.1 Recovery Thumb Drive .
Is this possible and if so how?

 

[Mike Lynch]

Found one and was shocked that it would take six hours to download.
All the download sites were Microsoft.
Tried three times on one PC and once on another.
Does this sound rational?
The copy that did end, I burned to a DVD.
As luck would have it, it would not load.
Tried two PC's and three DVD Drives.
What's up?

 

[MGhee]

Hi Mike

This is a long read but you might find an answer on how to download (or make) a repair disk. If your Windows 7 Pro is functioning as it should it looks like you can also create one right from your own OS. Sorry if this is the site you used already, you didn't provide any details as to where you got your downloads.

-> How can i get a Windows 7 Pro repair download

As to how long it should take to download can't be answered unless the size of the download is given as well your download speed. I would think the safest (and most rational) place to download something like this would be Microsoft, you risk malware and other nasty stuff getting files from any other place... Generally speaking Microsoft frowns on their stuff being hosted on anything but a Microsoft server.

If at all possible I like to verify downloads by checking the hashsum but you can only do this if you're given one.

We're kinda back at the "what software are you using" to create your disks? The data disk for your photos is easily created by the drag/drop process using file explorer, but here you need to create a bootable disk - more care and knowledge is needed to get the job done correctly... so I must ask again so whoever reads this knows exactly what software you used and exactly how did you proceed to create a repair disk?

If I can offer an opinion and I think most would agree - in this case making a bootable thumb drive is much easier to do, there's many free options as to what tool you use, and most thumb drives perform better than a DVD drive. If you don't have USB, can't boot to USB, or a repair can't be done from USB then there's only one choice, otherwise USB.