reinstalling vista
Community Forums/General Help/reinstalling vista
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| I bought my laptop about a year and a half again and as usual it came with the os pre installed. I did n' t get a vista disk with it. Whats the best way to reinstall. Should I dl a copy of vista from a torrent site and use my legal key to authorise it or just ask microsoft for a disk. |
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| on my sons laptop there was an option to Make Restore disks or something like that, which basicly created a few cds with all the pre installed stuff on for re installing i didnt get any cds/dvds with my comp, did the create restore disks but put them on dvd- instead of dvd+, so contacted HP who charged me about £15 for the restore disks |
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| When I bought my laptop with Vista preinstalled, it had a "recovery partition" which I had to make a recovery DVD from. Unfortunately the software to make the DVD refused to acknowledge that I had a DVD writer installed. Compaq's (who are actually HP) best solution was for me to buy - note; BUY! - a recovery CD from them! I'd just paid a fortune for the bloody laptop! I don't think so! I flattened the drive, and reinstalled from my Vista DVD I got for my desktop, and used the licence key on the bottom of the laptop which all worked perfectly. Plus I didn't end up with all the factory pre-installed junk. If you don't already have a DVD, but do have a legal licence key, I wouldn't see any particular harm in acquiring an ISO from a torrent site. Although I don't condone those things I do empathise with the situation. |
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| Yes as GFK said they is usually a recovery partition. Try pressing F12 repeatedly on boot (or whatever your BIOS's hot-boot menu is), there is sometimes a boot from recovery option there. Failing that, use a liveCD like Ubuntu live (run gparted/fdisk) or Partition Magic to look at the partition table (but do not modify unless you know what you are doing!). If you have a strange name or type on a second one (i cant remember exactly but its called something like EISA partition or might say 'Unknown' or 'recovery') If you have this then this means it does have a recovery partition. Visit the manufacturers website to find out how to use it. As for Downloading: -Your key will likely not work as the keys are assigned to certain regions, disksets, oems etc etc. -Although you are morally justified in downloading a cracked copy, i wouldn't bother as it is probably 'messed' with. |
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| Whats the best way to reinstall. Should I dl a copy of vista from a torrent site and use my legal key to authorise it or just ask microsoft for a disk. Like DavidH said, there may be an option to create restore disks in the menu already. If not, then take a peek here: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=622 Also, if you (or a friend) happens to have an OEM vista disk laying around already, you can always use it (in combination with the license key attached to the case of your computer) to reinstall the OS, as long as you make sure that it is indeed the correct edition. (retail version, upgrade version, OEM version and corporate version do not accept eachothers license keys, but you should be fine if you stick with the same type. Of course, use at your own risk.) |
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| When I bought my laptop with Vista preinstalled, it had a "recovery partition" which I had to make a recovery DVD from. Isn't that only needed when you want to make a backup of the recovery partition? You can normally reinstall Windows directly from the recovery partition. |
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| On my wifes Advent it had a Make Windows Disk option 'Techguys' or something this creates a reinstallable version of Vista specific for that brand and make of laptop |
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| I wouldn't see any moral issue with downloading a copy of windows from a torrent either. If your key is legit, then that's all that matters really, whether the law agrees or not. |
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| The same thing happened to me when my hard drive malfunctioned. I could not get the restore drive to work properly, so I just called HP support and told them the problem and they sent me some disks to install Vista free of charge. |
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| cheers for the advice. i will see if there is is an option to make a disk as there seems to be a recovery partition. if not i will just dl a torrent and use my key. odd that they never give you a set of disks with a new purchase |
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| odd that they never give you a set of disks with a new purchase It's much more profitable to sell an OS disk to someone who doesn't already have one than to just give them one with the PC... For a while Microsoft actually had some rules against giving CD's altogether for OEM's, but those were retracted a number of years ago. Some retailers like Dell will give you the OEM disc if you purchase one of their 'business' PC's, but not with their home user PC's. |
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| if not i will just dl a torrent and use my key. I would be carefull about downloading it that way alot of copies come with modified software which might include viruses. What I do is borrow from people that actual have windows dvd/cd, make a copy and do it from there. one thing you have to consider is that sometimes the istallation will "require" you to activate it by calling the phone number that it'll give you. don't worry as long as the key is the one registered for your computer there is no problem. You can even tell the service person you are installing it from a copy of Wondows borrowed and that you are using your own "valid key" and as long as that is true they will activate it for you. That is the way they do it in the States but I don't guarantee thats what they'll do in the UK. |
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| yeah i will hang fire on that a while. i don't have to reinstall just now, but would like that option soon |
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