New hard drive installation, Dell Laptop

bignred05

A bit of advice/assistance please folks

I’m in the process of getting a replacement hard drive for my Dell Insprinon 1750, to replace a faulty one

Now I followed Dell’s instructions for removing the faulty hard drive, my concerns are when fitting the new one

How will I go about reinstalling the software, as the laptop was originally vista premium, which has since been upgraded to Windows 7 premium via an upgrade disc with a serial number (this is the concern for me the serial number surely will not work again)

Also I have installed Microsoft office again from a disc with serial number (for 2 pc’s, both options have been used) again my concern is how to get Microsoft office reinstalled

I have mentioned this to dell, however I’m still awaiting a reply, any advice would be appreciated, thanks

simon.griggs

Dear bignred05,

I doubt whether you will have a problem with reactivating your software once your new Hard Drive arrives, since for the OS at least, this is likely to be a Dell OEM version of Windows, which is different to the retail versions bought in the High Street. I have done many repairs over the years for people in this situation and have never had an issue with Activation.

On the slim chance that you do, you should be able to call Microsoft and activate over the telephone, so I would not worry.

I hope this helps.

Regards


Simon.

JasX

I doubt you'll have serious problems with the Windows7 install, when you type in the Windows7 serial its loggged by microsoft along with a 'snapshot' of your machine's hardware, as this will be virtually identical to the hardware when you first entered the code product key should be fine.

Depending on how you got your upgrade and what 'type' of Windows7 disk it is you might find yourself needing to take different steps -if its a standard windows7 upgrade disk you might need to follow the procedure for 'clean installing' Windows7 onto a blank hard drive using an upgrade DVD, step by step guide can be found here:

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

if its not a standard windows upgrade disk it might be a Dell specific one, steps will be different but odds are it'll be more straightforward, you can't do any harm with a blank, brand new harddrive you'll not be able to simply reformat and try again.

after installing windows you'll need to make sure you have the right hardware drivers.

if you have a delll specific windows7 upgrade hopefully it'll do this automatically

if not since its a dell you might get lucky and find running windows7 update autoomatically finds everything (might need to look under the 'optional' updates for anythign that sounds like its to do with hardware

last resort dell are very good at havign all their drivers on their website if you put your laptop model in and you'll need to download them manually from there.

MS offfice will likely be fine to, just make sure you use the same cond you used to activate it on that machine first time round

bignred05

Thanks for the replies

I certainly feel better about it now
the hard drive arrive is due to arrive tomorrow, someone from Dell said they phone me back tomorrow evening to go through the reinstallation

thanks again