Windows OS has become slower to work, it hangs, intermittent errors appear ... How familiar is this situation to computer owners. Faced, probably, everyone, and at the same time more than once. Most questions of this kind are answered briefly: "Reinstalling the system." For an experienced user, this is a simple process. Long in time, but uncomplicated. If you are not a very experienced user ... However, this is solved.
It is much more difficult to decide if you do not have a stationary PC, but a netbook. On a PC, an operation consists of three steps: downloaded, recorded, installed. An image of any system can be found on the Internet or purchased. But this is an image of a CD or DVD. And for a computer with a drive questions will not arise. But there is no drive on the netbook, and he just has nothing to read on the disks for. Accordingly, the question "How to reinstall Windows on a netbook for novice users?" may present certain difficulties.
Several solutions
Let's look at how you can do a reinstall. Immediately make a reservation that these methods are designed for the moment when the system is still loading on the device. Even if it’s slow. Simply, if the system is no longer loading and you don’t have another computer at hand, then the question of how to reinstall Windows on a netbook can be solved only with the help of a service center and extra money. But, while the system is still loading, you can use, as it turns out, even several ways.
Let's look at each method in more detail. And let's start with the most famous.
The first way. Netbook itself
The simplest, and perhaps the most famous way, is to install the system directly from the netbook itself. All that is needed is the disk space where we download and then unzip the image. Having an image on disk, the question of how to reinstall Windows XP on a netbook simply does not arise. XP is a fairly old system, and it comes with a file from which you can start the installation directly from a "live" system.
Having found this file, run the installation, install. There is a slightly different solution than, for example, in a clean installation on a personal computer, but a netbook is not a personal computer. But, no matter how it is used, the live installation option is described above.
With proper installation, you will save all films, music and other documents. You will have to restore the program settings yourself, but there's nothing to be done. What is more important - a working system or settings that can be returned?
True, here it is worth noting one nuance, namely - what was on the device before reinstallation. If there was XP, then you will have one problem - be careful and choose the installation as "Update" (this method will save documents). But if there was Linux, for example, then the question of how to reinstall Windows on a netbook will be a little more complicated. We will not delve deeper into the jungle to understand why this is so, but now we will move on to the next method.
The second way. Standard flash drive
A user who did not sit at a computer yesterday knows about such a fairly simple device as a flash drive. This is an independent device for storing some information. At the same time, the netbook user knows that on his device there are several sockets for connecting standard flash drives. The question arises - is it possible to use a USB flash drive, or, to rephrase, how to reinstall Windows on a netbook from a USB flash drive?
It turns out to be very simple. We need the flash drive itself, our netbook and two programs - the very image of the system and any program that can make the flash drive bootable. Since the installation entirely takes place from a USB flash drive, it must be selected in such a volume that the entire image of the system fits entirely on it. For example, in the above method, the volume of all files occupied approximately 1 optical disk. For such a system, a 1 GB flash drive is suitable. The flash drive is preferably empty, because the program in the process can format it. If the flash drive is larger than the system, then after installation it will be possible to record other files on it.
For example, the Unetbootin program operates in 4 steps. If the flash drive is defined by it, you need to select Diskimage (at the bottom of the window), next to the drop-down list type is Iso, then click on the button opposite to it on the left to select the previously downloaded image file. Found an image - opened it with a program. Then, at the very bottom of the window, look for the OK button. Waiting for a while. At the end of the program, it offers either immediate reboot (reboot now) or exit (exit).
When the flash drive is ready, we overload the device, then in the BIOS we set the first boot from the flash drive or at the time of loading hold F8 (it is decided empirically: either F5 or F8). A boot device selection menu should appear, if a USB flash drive is connected, it will be listed as USB Disk, select it. Installation will begin directly from the flash drive.
The difference between the above method and this is that after you have prepared the USB flash drive, the installation files from the hard drive can be deleted, since they will be on the USB flash drive, and it is from it that the system will be installed.
In principle, the installation method from a USB flash drive is the most universal, so it makes sense not to clean the USB flash drive after installation. It may still be useful to you.
Regardless of what you put, you need to select "Update" in order to be able to save document files.
If we want to install the systems that came out later, the latest, most modern, then we should talk about the volumes of new systems.
A little bit about volumes and licenses
A standard netbook has a small hard drive. At the same time, the described methods imply that you are using the hard drive of the netbook itself. No one, of course, prohibits preparing a flash drive on another computer, if one exists. And if not? At the same time, installation copies of the latest versions of Windows have significant volumes: 3, 5, 8 GB.
And if 1-2 GB can usually be found, then 8-16 can already be a problem. Often there are several systems on such a disk, and during the installation process you can choose which system to install. But selecting files from only one system will not work due to licensing options in the new Microsoft OS. Strictly speaking, there is only one system on such disks - the most complete, and additional versions depend on the key that the user buys.
Let's talk about installing more modern OS
So, if you are faced with the fact that the existing system does not suit you for some reason, and you want to install Windows 7, then it's time to address the issue of how to reinstall Windows 7 on a netbook.
As a matter of fact, the two simplest options were given earlier. If for some reason they do not suit you, you can use other ways. As the gurus say, everything in the system can be done in several ways.
The third way. Update from image
As mentioned earlier, all systems come in disk images. You burn it to a DVD-ROM and put it on the disc. But if there is free space, you can update from the image. The scheme here is standard. There are disk emulator programs, for example, 120% known to many Alcohol users, load the image into such a program, and install it. A new drive appears in the system - a virtual one.
Go to the "Tools" menu, select "Settings", there is a section "Virtual Disk".
Configure as in the pictures above. In general, the program can create 31 drives, but to solve the issue of how to reinstall Windows on a netbook, one is enough. After the reboot (needed for the virtual drive to work correctly), go to the folder where the image is located - right-click on it, select "Mount to device" and then select the previously created drive.
The image will start and you will see the main screen of the installation start. Images of screens 7 and XP are higher in the text. And now let's move on to the most difficult method. As a matter of fact, when installing on a regular computer, they choose it, but in a netbook it is quite complicated.
The fourth way. Installation from external media
We can say that this option is no different from the one already described with a flash drive, but this is not entirely true. Computer technology is constantly evolving, and now you can buy an external drive for reading / writing discs.
This can be quite an expensive pleasure, but if you count how much time you can use it ... However, consider it yourself. If you have such a drive (by the way, when buying a netbook, many sellers will give it to you at a discount), the question of how to reinstall Windows on a netbook, like many others related to information on a CD, will simply not interest you, because in this case the installation or reinstalling will be no different from a typical installation on a PC.
For example: Asus netbook
Asus was probably the first brand to produce netbooks, so the owners of the device asked how to reinstall windows on an Asus netbook, probably more than once.
But since Asus was one of the first manufacturers of such devices, the owner, determined to install Windows 7, may not be able to cope on his own with this, in general, ordinary task. Depending on the specific device, the solution to the question of how to reinstall Windows 7 on an Asus netbook would be worth entrusting to specialists in the SC. Although, if the matter is very urgent and there is no unnecessary finance, you can try it yourself. The main thing is to do everything in order and carefully read what the installation program requires or offers at each stage.
Conclusion
In this article, we looked at several ways to reinstall Wndows on a netbook, from the simplest to the most complex. Of course, these are not all the ways, but if you are the owner of a netbook, then, after reading the article, you will surely choose the most suitable option for yourself. The described methods imply that you do not have another computer at hand. If it is, many of these methods will be much simpler. In particular, dropping all the necessary files to another computer, you can run not an update, but a clean installation. Clean in many cases, better updates. Why? About this in another article.