A pal called me one day years ago and said his girlfriend had filled her Visa operated laptop to the point it wouldn't even run Ccleaner. It was one of those lovely units with Altec Lancing sound etc., etc. She had raised it 4" above a solid table and dropped it, in the hope it would spur it into action and release the zillions of photos she'd taken a year to take. No backups. None.
It happened I'd got a Vista restore disc for one of my Vaios but I didn't dare risk it.. She had trained all over the UK photographing cathedrals with her new Nikon, so an even bigger investment. I downloaded the latest Ubuntu and put the ISO on a stick. I worked perfectly but it took me two days to copy all the folders onto my hard disc and DVD's for her. I then tried my backup Vista. To my astonishment it restored Windows perfectly.
She gave me the computer which has been running ever since on W7.