Lost windows disc?

Madmonk

My Dell Latitude D505 needs reformatting but unfortunately I no longer have the Windows XP discs. One of the techies at my sons school has given him a Windows XP disc that belongs to his Fujitsu laptop and we still have the key but will the key work with his copy? If it won't what else can we do? The laptop has all it's stickers but the disc were lost along time ago,

MM

Browntoa

you need a Dell oem cd otherwise it will fail authentification

there are a few Dell Xp Cd's for sale on ebay

some dells have a recovery partition , hit CTRL F11 as it boots

peter_the_piper

I lost my key and found it using Belarc Adviser. Now made a note of all keys in a safe place.

Browntoa

Dell OEM cd's do not need to key

why do you need to reformat ?

Madmonk

The computer crashed and appeared to have been infected by some virus. The techs at school tried to save it (as I had various files I wanted to save) but said reformatting was the only way? As I said I have the key -sticker on bottom of laptop. It's running at the moment courtesy of the disc they gave my son but this will run out in 30 days and it sounds like my key won't help with their copy (Fujitsu). I looked as per suggestion on e-bay but I'm concerned that I won't get the right disc for my laptop? And if I'm honest I was hoping not to have to pay out for one!

MM

Browntoa

any Dell Xp home Cd will do, theres really no way round it unless you know someone who has a DELL PC/Laptop with the CD

gonzo127

just a quick one you should be able to get your files off!

download and burn of a ubuntu disk - instructions on the site,

when you pop the disk in the drive it will give you an option of 'trying ubuntu' choose this as this will run the entire operating system from the CD and your computers RAM, once booted up fully you should be able to access allk the files on your hard drive and then save them off onto USB stick/hard drive

also there are options which we could help you with which might mean a reformat is not required,

for example

have you tried booting into safe mode with networking?
have you tried the windows recovery CD?

what happens when you try to boot the computer do you have any error code?

Madmonk

Hi Gonzo, I suspect that since we have already reformatted with the Fujitsu XP disc that it's passed saving my files? I will wait for son to return from college and let him read your post (I'm too much of a wimp to do it myself!)
Unfortunately I've lost all the discs for the laptop (I suspect I threw them away when I finally threw the box away!). I know that when we tried to go into safemode it went straight to a blue screen covered in 0 & X's
MM

gonzo127

ah yes unfortunatly it most likely will be as formatting will have wiped the hard drive

JasX

Madmonk wrote: »

it sounds like my key won't help with their copy (Fujitsu).

Have you tried it? my understanding was if you used a dell OEM disk on a dell PC activation was automatic and there was never any need to type your key in.

if you used a non-dell OEM disk it wouldn't auto activate but would work if a valid OEM key was typed into the activation window

if you used a RETAIL disk and only had an OEM key there would be no way to activate.

-when I was a cheap student I was using a dell OEM disk and non-dell (medion) OEM XP key from another machine for my main self built PC and that worked fine, unless there is a specific block that comes in when you try that in reverse.....

As a side note if you have a RETAIL/OEM mismatch there is a possible workaround ripping files from the install disk, opening one and editing a text file to tell it its the other type of install CD, repack it and burn back to a blank CD and install from that but its quite complicated and never gone that route myself.

Short answer give it a go, might need a call to microsoft but you are within the terms of your OEM license so should be fine

Madmonk

As its running fine at the moment using the Fujitsu disc we were planning to wait until the 30 days were up and then try the key (Cowards!!!). I have to admit when it comes to computers I can e-mail and search but anything else is too frightening to contemplate. I'm a wimp!

I have asked on my free cycle to see if anyone has a disc so maybe I'll get lucky!

MM;)