Missing XP CD
 

I passed on my previous laptop, purchased from Dell in Jan 2003 to Binoette 1, who now wishes to sell it and upgrade to my current Dell. (hey, what are fathers for? :rolleyes: )

Now she tells me she doesn't have the Windows XP reinstallation disk that came with it. I never used it and would have had no reason to take it out of the pocket when I owned it, and a search so far has failed to turn it up. I can't really offer the laptop for sale without it, so it's over to Prooners.

What options do I have? Will Dell give me a replacement (they will still have my purchase details)? Is it possible to buy another OEM disc, or can XP only be used on the computer it's shipped with?

Any advice appreciated before I ring Dell (since B1 also denies ever having the original sales invoice)?

Edit! Hang on, what am I talking about? My current lappy is Dell, the previous one was Acer! Sheesh. :O

Had a similar experience - had a 'normal' XP disk 'stolen' and tried to repair the installation using a Compaq XP disk which came with laptop and it somehow detected the machine wasn't a Compaq and refused to work to either repair or reinstall XP.

However... if you do a clean install after formating the disk it may work it did for me - not condoning illegal use of disks but I ve now brought XP 3 times so I think you should be able to use it on any machine that you own.

PW

Hmm, nothing wrong with the computer though, PW. I don't need to install XP, I just need to have the disk to make the computer saleable.

Binoculars,

The Notebook should have a sticker on it with the CD-Key for Windows. As long as you have that, you can use any WinXP CD in order to do the install. (Just make sure you use the same version of Home or Pro.) When the install asks for the CD-Key, use the one on the Notebook.

Take Care,

Richard

What a wonderful opportunity to install a good Linux distro! :ok:

B1, on actually bothering to open the CD's that came with the lappy, "found one that says Recovery CD, and it's got a little XP and a Microsoft symbol down the bottom. Could that be it?"

:ugh: Duh! Thanks, Richard. :ok:

Binoculars,

The Recovery CD will wipe the Drive and bring it back to the way it was on Day 1 when you bought it.

It works more like Ghost than a WinXP CD.

Take Care,

Richard

Look at the underside of the laptop and you should see the CD-key to which Richard refers. It's 5 groups of 5 alphnumeric characters.

On a slightly different topic; I have the CD but misslaid the manual with the numbers on it. Is it stored somewhere on the computer where I can access it?

sky9,

Download:

Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder v1.41

Take Care,

Richard

Many thanks Richard.

sky9,

Always glad to help. ;)

Take Care,

Richard

Richard or others,

Let me get this straight; the restore disc will take the hard drive back to the way it was when I bought it; that means with XP installed I assume?

If the new owner needed to format the hard drive for whatever reason, would he be able to reinstall XP with that disc, (in combination with the CD-Key) or should there still be another XP disc somewhere?

Thanks

The 3 laptops I ve had with Restore Disks have done just that - formatted the disk and reinstalled the basic XP but wiping everything else you ve added. But my Compaq had (?) 4 disks and one of those had the XP software on it so it was possible to run that alone, but only on the Compaq, and repair or reinstall XP without formatting the drive.

Is there a read me file on the disk or do you have the handbook? Or take the risk of running the disk and exiting before making any changes?

Then again if the machine is being sold maybe returning it to a newly formatted state may be a good idea to protect your/your family's files that maybe inadvertantly left on it.

PW

Binoculars,

Exactly. It will destroy any data on the Hard Drive and put it back to day one. If your Notebook came with WinXP, then the Restore CD will put WinXP on there again.

Take Care,

Richard

I've had mixed experiences with these "restore" disks. I find that 50% of the time you'll be prompted to "insert Win CD now" or similar. It seems there are two types, one is an image which contains the OS plus other stuff, and copies straight onto your HDD. The other is a setup disk which then requests the original OS CD, which you may or may not have.

Some restore disks have a menu option, such as 1) Reinstall OS without other changes, and 2) Format hard drive and reinstall OS. The former does not touch your data files, the latter wipes everything out.

When I acquire secondhand PCs or trade-ins I always try to get the full package of original disks, but often people have lost them, supply the wrong ones, or have probably never had them in the first place.

If you view the restore disk with Explorer, you'll be able to see what's on it. There may even be a "readme" file.

arrrggghhh!!!!:ugh: