wardell, who exactly is servicing your laptop? Are you sending it back for mfr warranty repair, or to an independent service tech? And WHY are you having it serviced? Is there a an electronic problem with the actual laptop hardware, or a software problem (virus infestation or Windows crashing)? These factors determine what you can or should do before/after you get your laptop back.
IOW, if its a hardware problem, you can restore the easy way, from a "cloned" copy of your entire system as described by cockyblu and others. But if you're suffering from a massive virus infestation or Windows corruption, that would be a VERY BAD idea, because you would just clone the issues back to your laptop. It would be better in that case to re-install everything from scratch, piece by piece. If you aren't very PC-savvy, that can be a daunting task (I recently had to do this for myself, and its so tedious I've dragged it out for several weeks, despite having done it professionally for years).
"Restoring to factory defaults" is what the mfr usually does during an official servicing. They have no concern for your convenience whatsoever, they just want to get you out of their hair. Yes: factory default does mean whatever version of Windows was originally on the laptop, along with all the good and junk software it may have shipped with when new. You will literally need to start over from scratch, updating yourself to Windows 10 (although why the hell anyone involved with porn would want that horrendous Microsoft spyware system over good old Win7 is beyond me).
If you aren't skilled with PC crap yourself, you need to be very outspoken and look for a cooperative, friendly repair service that understands they need to do EVERYTHING for you to return the laptop back to its former state (not this bare-bones "factory default" shit you're hearing now). Explain that you want Windows 10 back, you want all your apps, etc. I do understand from other posts that you feel uncomfortable where you live, and might not want a tech to see all the gay stuff on your laptop- if so, you need to copy all that off there and erase it before you hand the laptop over. Its much easier to have the service do all of the work, so consider your options carefully. Absolute privacy will require getting your hands dirty and doing more of the work yourself. Most techs really could care less about gay porn: they've seen everything ten times over. 90% of these techs will erase the laptop first thing, not even bothering to look at your stuff (other than to perform a backup). If the shop isn't within walking distance, I wouldn't worry too much.
The following is what you'll have to do if you are overly concerned about anything the tech might see on your laptop, or if you just want the additional security of your own backup (something everyone should have anyway):
First, buy an external USB hard drive from Best Buy or some local place. They come as either portable cigarette-pack size, powered from the USB connection, or as somewhat larger desktop size, with separate AC power cord. The second is arguably more reliable and safer long term, but most people prefer the portables for convenience (I use Western Digital Passports myself). Either way, cost is about $90 for 1 Terabyte HDD.
Once you have the external HDD, connect it to your laptop. If your laptop problem is hardware, not related to Windows at all, you can either run the built-in Win10 cloning/backup utility recommended by cockyblu, or download a different free utility and use that. This process will copy your entire laptop contents as a single huge file onto the external HDD. When you get your laptop back, connect the HDD again, and use the same utility to restore the laptop to exactly how it was before.
BUT: if your problem is with a virus or Windows not working right, you
DON'T want to use the automatic cloning utility (because that would just put all the same problems back onto the laptop later). Instead, manually copy only your personal files or folders onto the external hard drive: everything in your Do
ents and Downloads and Music, Videos, Pictures folders, and any loose personal stuff you have on the desktop or other personal folders. These manual copies are instantly accessible to you if you connect the HDD to any other computer, but the giant backup file isn't: even if you do the clone trick, its convenient to have extra individual copies of your personal files.
You'll also need to make a copy of your browser bookmarks How this is done varies a bit depending on browser (Explorer, Chrome, etc). But the gist is the same for all: there should be an option in the bookmarks menu titled "Manage (or Organize) Bookmarks" > "Export Bookmarks To HTML". Click Export to HTML, and your browser will create a small backup file in your Do
ents folder with today's date (i.e. "bookmarks_2017_4_19"). Copy that file to the external HDD. Last thing to do is look at your Programs menu, and write down the name of every app you have installed on your computer. Look over this list: put a check mark next to any app that didn't come with the computer originally. These are the ones you might need to download and install again later: try to locate the license or activation numbers they might require for installation. Most paid apps register you, so a re-install should not cost additional money (they might also keep your activation info on file if needed).
When you're quite sure you have everything important copied over, you can delete and empty-trash all the personal stuff on your laptop, and send it in for service. When you get it back, perform the Windows 10 upgrade (if you need to get from 7 to 10). Once Win10 is running, you should probably connect to internet and just leave the laptop alone over night. Windows 10 takes hours of communication with MS to get its shit together after a re-install, this goes faster if you're not using the computer at the same time.
Next day, make sure you have AntiVirus software installed on the laptop, and scan the external HDD to be sure there are no viruses lurking in your personal files. If all is good, you can copy everything over. To get your bookmarks back, open the browser bookmarks menu, choose "Import Bookmarks", and select the bookmarks file you made earlier. Then download and/or re-install any missing software apps.
Good luck! :thumbs up:
