BleepingComputer.com: reinstall Vista on Dell computer

Hello, this is my first time posting here.

I am working on my sister's laptop, it's Dell Inspiron 1720, only a few months old. Last week she encountered a problem upon booting up and received the BSOD and then the option to repair the computer. It would not repair and would not restore back to previous dates.

She called Dell for support and found that she has to pay mega bucks just to get support.... The only thing they helped with was ensuring that the hard drive was not at fault since the fn key upon reboot did the diagnostic and ruled out hard drive problems. I am suspecting the latest windows update may have caused this since she did the update the day before and suddenly this repair option occurred.

She was provided the Dell disk with Vista disk and a drivers disk with the system... can I reinstall Vista overtop without losing any of her programs and data (I used to do this successfully with Win98 and XP). I looked through the tutorials here about Vista help but didn't see this option available.

Appreciate any help you can give me.

deb

It depends on the disk provided. If it offers to upgrade or repair, it should keep all information in a windows.old folder.

if it is a destructive restore, it is just that. destroys data..

You can save the data currently on the drive by downloading a copy of ubuntu desktop burn it to disk and boot to the live cd.. then backup all needed data, restart and do a full system restore from the dell cd's.

jbird, on Dec 2 2008, 03:11 PM, said:

That's kinda jacked up that its not even a year old and support isn't free.
Well thats Dell for yah.

Major manufacturer's only offer support for hardware issues - software can be screwed up the first time you mess with the system, so they don't cover that.

That being said, it's possible to do a repair install of Vista - but I haven't tried it myself. Just be careful that you don't wipe everything while trying the repair (and backup your stuff before trying).

Here's a link that may help: http://vistasupport.mvps.org/repair_a_vist...e_vista_dvd.htm

Yes but the million $$ question is, did Dell supply you with an actual vista cd? or just a "recovery disk" and some drivers.

The normal Dell Operating System DVD is a full copy of Vista - as are the one's from Gateway. The HP's usually are also - but you have to order them (they don't come with the system) and they're "locked" to specific model numbers. I think the Acer's are also, but the Toshiba's aren't (they're a Ghost image). I don't know about Sony, but don't think they are.

Michael-Anthony, on Dec 2 2008, 03:30 PM, said:

I am unable to boot into windows though, it just loops into the repair window on every boot. I wouldn't be able to install ubuntu to get the files.

Michael-Anthony, on Dec 2 2008, 03:31 PM, said:

Like the following usasma quote.. the support is for hardware only and that is available until 2010...

usasma, on Dec 2 2008, 04:28 PM, said:

I am unable to back up her stuff, although she said there really isn't anything that important, since she has only had this system for a short while...

Michael-Anthony, on Dec 2 2008, 04:39 PM, said:

from the look of the disk it says 'Reinstallation DVD Windows Vista-Home Premium 32BIT' and not for reinstallation of drivers or programs. She also got a separate disk for drivers and utilities.

usasma, on Dec 2 2008, 05:00 PM, said:

Yes, you are right about HP... I have an HP and didn't get one disk and when my system crashed and went back to Future Shop to see about recovery disks.. they said that HP would have to mail them to me... I bought my own full XP disks there and then to avoid having to just be stuck with recovery disks specific to my machine.



thank you all for your responses....

I found that I have one more issue here and that's to do with the product code... I looked on the bottom of the laptop and the code is smudged up pretty bad and I can't get every digit, I got most but am missing about 4 letters/numbers, she didn't receive the written code anywhere else and of course I can't use the keylogger on her system to get the code, unfortunately she didn't think to write down this code when she got her system. Is there anyway I can get the code off the disk somehow? I would hate to start reinstalling and then can't input the code.

ummm... ubuntu isnt something through windows. you would burn it on a cd, boot with the cd in, and run a version of linux from the cd. No need to install or boot windows.
you can then backup anything important


Ubuntu live cd PT 1

Ubuntu live cd PT 2

Ubuntu live cd PT 3

Michael-Anthony, on Dec 2 2008, 10:30 PM, said:

well, thankyou, I've never heard of ubuntu.. I have heard of linux though so now I know what you are talking about. Using this method will I still be able to access the registry of windows to recover the product code?

I'll also look at that site 'how to geek' for more info on how to fix this thing for her.

I was actually searching for a howto on how to do that for you..

the best i could come up with is this.


whilst inside the ubuntu desktop, run terminal
(applications, accessories, terminal) then (your going to have to get your internet connection working for this one)

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

make sure you get the - at the end...


Next, add the repository to your system's list of APT sources:
For Ubuntu Intrepid (8.10):

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

For Ubuntu Hardy (8.04):

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

For Debian Etch (4.0):

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/etch.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

Then update APT's package information by running

sudo apt-get update

then click this link


download and install dumphive

mount your windows drive (places > computer)

if you get an error mounting do this

sudo mkdir media/HardDisk
sudo mount -t ntfs -o force /dev/sda1 media/HardDisk

and replace sda1 with your windows partition (you can find this out by going)

fdisk -l

thats a lowercase L


in terminal

dumphive /media/HardDisk/WINDOWS/system32/config/software ~/software.reg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Navigate to /home/ubuntu/.wine/drive_c/windows and run regedit.exe using Wine.
Select Registry -> Import Registry File
Import software.reg
Open keyfinder.exe using Wine.