Windows xp Home/ no disk to reinstall it blahhh

[Andyuk2007]

Hi all

I knew i would get this problem eventually. I have a customer's pc that fails to boot to windows I've tried all the usual stuff in the recovery console from running chkdsk e.t.c but it fails to repair the problem.

It comes up with something like "your drive has unrecoverable problems that cannot be resolved" or something like that, so now i'm stuck with reloading the OS system but the problem is i dont have a windows home disk with her product key on. the computer is a dell one if thats any help

is there anyway i can install another copy of windows xp home and change the product key to her valid one ?

I honestly knew i would come across a problem like this eventually. any help would be appreciated i'm downloading a iso of windows home now but of course i dont want to really use a cracked version.

thanks

 

[greggh]

If you are getting that error the drive itself might be damaged. If it isn't completely dead it might be dying soon. If you want to get data off the drive, or try and get the drive to a working state again I would use HDD Regenerator, from http://www.dposoft.net/ , on it.

That will "fix" any of the bad sectors by trying to get the data off of that sector if it can and move it to another one and then marking the sector bad. I've had a ton of success with it and so I purchased it. To be honest I first found it on Hirens disc. But it is worth the money.

As for the dell cd, you can always get one from restoredisks.com. You will need the dell one for it to take a dell key.

 

[Andyuk2007]

If you are getting that error the drive itself might be damaged. If it isn't completely dead it might be dying soon. If you want to get data off the drive, or try and get the drive to a working state again I would use HDD Regenerator, from http://www.dposoft.net/ , on it.

That will "fix" any of the bad sectors by trying to get the data off of that sector if it can and move it to another one and then marking the sector bad. I've had a ton of success with it and so I purchased it. To be honest I first found it on Hirens disc. But it is worth the money.

As for the dell cd, you can always get one from restoredisks.com. You will need the dell one for it to take a dell key.

hi there, thanks for the advice, i did try restoredisks.com but i wasnt able to find the disk i was looking for as there is no model number on the side of the pc and i cant get into the case to even take the disk out to run tests in another pc either. this is just a nightmare at the moment, i was going to phone dell on monday to see if they can help or to see if its still under warranty or to see if they can send the customer a replacement windows xp disk.

 

[greggh]

Check my private message to you.

 

[JohnR]

i dont have a windows home disk with her product key on​

You don't actually need one. XP Disks don't *have* the key on them - you can use any XP disk of the right flavour, as long as they have the key.

(and you can get the key out of their current installation using programs like Magical Jellybean Keyfinder)

In my Handy Toolkit(tm) I have copies of Windows XP Pro OEM, XP Pro Retail, XP Pro Volume, XP Pro MSDN, XP Home Retail, XP Home OEM, Vista OEM (one disk for all flavours!) and a bunch of others. It doesn't matter that they're burned copies, and it doesn't matter that they're not the original installation disk. What matters is only that the key you use to install be the correct key for that KIND of Windows, and that it be the license that they own.

Dell's restore disks allow reinstallation without a key, but you don't have to use them to restore a Dell. You can use a plain vanilla XP OEM CD, put in the Dell OEM key when prompted, and you'll get the machine up and running with minimal drivers.

On a clean, working machine, visit support.dell.com and put in the ailing machine's Service Tag. Download the network drivers, transfer them to a USB stick, move them onto the freshly reinstalled machine. Install the network drivers, get the machine on the network, and start Windows Update and visit support.dell.com again from that machine to get all the other drivers.

 

[focuz]

You can use a plain vanilla XP OEM CD, put in the Dell OEM key when prompted,​

Note the key words also its important. When you get the key your currently using it will be the OEM style key. So you must have a copy of "XP OEM" not just a regular retail XP version. However no matter where you get the OEM disc whether its burned or what, it will work as already stated above.​

 

[JohnR]

As an extra tip:

The way to tell if any given disk is OEM or not is to look carefully at the words in the hologram. If it says "Only for distribution with a new PC" on the front of the disk, it's an OEM copy. If it doesn't say that, it's retail.

Also: If it says "Upgrade"? It's retail. Always. And you'll need a valid disk from a lower version (like 2000 or ME) to put in when the installer prompts you for one.

To tell if the user's LICENSE KEY is OEM or not, look for the license sticker. If it's on the case of the machine, it's 99% likely to be OEM. If it says the name of any computer company on it, it's OEM. If it says OEM, it's OEM.

If there's no license sticker on the computer case, it's PROBABLY a retail copy. If they've got a brightly-coloured 8.5x11 paper folder with a CD holder and a license key on the folder itself? Retail.

There's no easy way to tell if a user's key is from an Action Pack subscription or a volume license deal, both of which require different CDs from the OEM and the Retail ones, but the good news is that if they've got those, they almost certainly know it, because those are NOT the kind of thing you find on a home user's personal PC.