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DELL vista reinstallation cd

  • 04-03-2009 8:32pm
    #1
    ooPabsoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 542 ✭✭✭


    hey...i have a dell vista home premium reinstallation cd,a mate of mine has a pc riddled with viruses etc and wants me to sort it so im just going to format it...im not 100% sure if he still has the XP disk he got with his pc. when im formating my pc it doesnt ask for any keys..just installs...will this disk work on his computer?


Comments

  • #2
    EKRIUQ
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,386 ✭✭✭EKRIUQ


    Not too sure whether it will work or not but I replaced a hard drive lately and just loaded up the dell disks and it worked fine. The Keys could be in the firmware bios.


  • #3
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    If your mate doesnt have a Vista licence, then a Vista disc isn't going to be of any use to him. You can't use Vista on a computer unless you have a licence to.

    However, he does presumably have a valid XP licence, if his computer came with XP he'll have an oem-licence. So even if you can't find his XP CD, if you can get hold of any XP CD, it should work ok (but not a recovery CD, they are a different thing). But you'll still need the product key - he should have it somewhere, whether its on a sticker on the computer, or in with the stuff that came with the computer. If you physically can't find it, you can retrieve it from within his Windows install (google it) so make sure you have it written down before doing trying to wipe the current install.


  • #4
    yoyo
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,017 Mod ✭✭✭✭yoyo


    ooPabsoo wrote: »
    hey...i have a dell vista home premium reinstallation cd,a mate of mine has a pc riddled with viruses etc and wants me to sort it so im just going to format it...im not 100% sure if he still has the XP disk he got with his pc. when im formating my pc it doesnt ask for any keys..just installs...will this disk work on his computer?

    As EKRIUQ said, the Dell manufacturers CD keys are BIOs bound, hence the reason you can install the OS without a CD KEY and it will become activated, It will possibly even refuse to install on another machine, or simply wont activate on it.
    Have you looked to see if his Dell has a hidden partition which has the XP restore? Alot of newer machines don't come with OS cds and have a secret partition which has the Windows installer instead.
    You usually can access this partition by using a hot key combination, on Dells it seems the hot key is holding down CTRL & F11 when the machine is booting (at Dell logo) to access the restore options.
    If there is no hot key then you'll need to get a exact CD simular to the one that came with the machine (Same version & service pack etc..), Dell will possibly post out restore discs for a small charge, assuming the other machine is also a dell, if not hot keys may be different

    Nick

    My Beer Glass collection site 🍺

    My Irish Callcards site



  • #5
    Amalgam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,026 ✭✭✭Amalgam


    ooPabsoo, your Vista CD has been 'pre-validated' by Dell. The image may restore, but will refuse to update once Vista figures out you're using it on different hardware.

    There are ways around this, none of them legal.

    Your friend's computer, as stated previously, should have a valid OEM serial, usually placed on the underside of the laptop. This can be used to restore XP, typically with an OEM XP CD, not sure it will work with a boxed retail version of XP CD.


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