Reinstalling Vista

tightbarsteward

Having problems booting vista on laptop. Firstly winload.exe missing, now \Boot\Bcd gone .

I want to reinstall but the laptop came without a Vista DVD but I have borrowed an OEM version off a lad at work which he installed on his Intel Mac.

Can I install Vista using the DVD i borrowed but inputing the product key from the bottom of the laptop?

Seagull

What make is your laptop ? If it was supplied with Vista pre installed but didn't come with the Vista disc then it may well have a separate recovery partition. If it doesn't have a recovery partition then you may need to try and find the manufacturers own Vista version otherwise your key probably won't work with your friends copy.

Conor_3

Yes you can use a normal Vista DVD with your key although you're likely to have to phone MS to activate it.

tightbarsteward

Conor wrote: »

Yes you can use a normal Vista DVD with your key although you're likely to have to phone MS to activate it.

I'll phone Microsoft & see what they say. Thanks for that.

tightbarsteward

Seagull wrote: »

What make is your laptop ? If it was supplied with Vista pre installed but didn't come with the Vista disc then it may well have a separate recovery partition. If it doesn't have a recovery partition then you may need to try and find the manufacturers own Vista version otherwise your key probably won't work with your friends copy.

I think there is a recovery partition called WindowsRE. How do I use that to recover Vista?

Frozenace

You can run the setup with the option to 'fix' windows. If all fails, follow the following steps:

In the BIOS, set your Boot Drive to the DVD drive, then install using the OEM recovery disc. The Serial number should be on the sticker.

You can online activate it. If it doesn't work, phone up MS afterwards.

tightbarsteward

Frozenace wrote: »

You can run the setup with the option to 'fix' windows. If all fails, follow the following steps:

In the BIOS, set your Boot Drive to the DVD drive, then install using the OEM recovery disc. The Serial number should be on the sticker.

You can online activate it. If it doesn't work, phone up MS afterwards.

I don't have any of the original disks for the laptop. I have a different OEM version of Vista I borrowed. None of the recovery options work. I also tried using the bootrec.exe tool from the command line but to no avail. In fact after trying all the options here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392 Windows recovery will not even see the Windows file structure now on C:

Other than reinstalling I am at a bit of a loss.