Re-installing Vista

Shanegggg

Right, the girlfriend dropped her dell laptop one too many times and now the vista won't boot up anymore!

Was able to copy the files she needed using a live ubuntu cd and when i started ubuntu, it also told me that the main hard drive had too many bad sectors in it and recommended a new hard drive!

New hard drive is in the post but now she can't find her vista cd!

I can still access the recorvery partition, so I was wondering if it is possible to copy that over to the new hard drive or does the recovery require windows to be there in the first place?

or can I just give her my dell vista cd (both 32-bit home premium sp 1) and she can enter in her own product key from the bottom of her own laptop?

Thanks for any help

Voodu Child

Theres a good chance that your Dell disc will work. Usually a Dell OEM disc should work in any Dell machine, and it'll validate once her licence is legit and its the same version of OS.

Copying the recovery partition to a new drive is possible, but its not as simple as that, you need disk imaging tools and a decent knowledge of what needs to be done.

Shanegggg

Thanks for such a speedy reply.

Yeah the recovery partition option seems like such a trek for what it's worth and she'd be left loads of lovely dell bloatware, I was just thinking she might have to do it just to keep her own legit product key.

Just one more thing, I remember that last time I reinstalled vista on my own laptop using the cd, I didn't have to enter a product key, will this be the case for her too and she'll just have to change the key to hers? Or will it ask for a product key since it will be a completely blank hard drive?

Thanks again.

Shanegggg

I'm after installing vista there using my own dell vista oem cd.

Everything is running grand only problem is I turned around her laptop to look at the product key and 2 of the numbers are scratched and I can't make them out for the life of me.

Vista hasn't asked me for a product key or anything yet, but now both my laptop and her's have the same product key. Seems to be pre-installed from the disc.

Will I just change my laptop product key to the one on the back of my laptop and leave her with the one that came pre-installed?

Or is this a general OEM product that comes with every dell vista disc so i don't need to change anything?

Thanks

monkeypants

Dell CDs generally have the key coded in and pre-activated, but they do check the BIOS to make sure that the machine is a Dell. The key will be accepted, but you may fail the WGA stuff at some point.

Shanegggg

monkeypants wrote: »

Dell CDs generally have the key coded in and pre-activated, but they do check the BIOS to make sure that the machine is a Dell. The key will be accepted, but you may fail the WGA stuff at some point.

So if I change my product to the one on the bottom of my laptop and she keeps the one from the cd everything will be grand?

wolfric

If all else fails ring dell up. After they got that customer support law suit they've been very prompt at settling things.

Shanegggg

I figured out the product key on her laptop this morning but only after about 50 tries!

Anyways everythings up and running now, thanks for all your help.