Why is it so hard to find factory system restore disks so I can reformat?
Anybody know of a company that sells them? 5 year old Gateway laptop.
I have the windows disk but my dog chewed the drivers.
reinstall windows and do a windows update for the drivers?
Use a normal windows disk…Use nLite…Get the drivers offline and slipstream everything onto a new CD.
Gateway is TERRIBLE with recovery discs. Mine didnt come with one and the guy warned me at best buy that is the only downside to them.
You can make one using LZ’s method or just find the drivers for the OS you want to install and but them on another CD.
The big one is the networking driver so you can get online after its installed and then find the other ones.
Or just do the install and find all the drivers and stick them on a jump drive…and install them after xp…
How would you get that to work with windows activation?
Most of the customers I work for come in with a piece of shit computer, with no installation disc in site. I usually have them order one from Dell or whoever their OEM is.
You can download the OEM Windows CDs…
http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/1511793/2325666/
Its just another version of Windows like volume license…
Got an invite code?
Yeah I understand I can download that iso, and install windows, but won’t they get the warning when they go to update windows that it is a pirate copy?
Most of the machines I work with have the XP sticker on them. Would I use that as the cd key?
Ya. if your sticker says like Windows XP Home SP1 then you just need any OEM windows XP Home with SP1 CD. When it asks for the key, put in whatever is on the sticker to the version is legit.
Depends on the machine, some have the full key on the tower while others do not. It’s usually easy to spot the non-valid ones since they are typically in a different format. Another issue is that some of the serial keys at bound to a specific manufacturer. As an example circa 2006 HPs had the full serial key on the side and it would work with any machine as long as it was HP.
Any OEM tower/laptop that came from DELL, IBM, HP, Gateway Asus, etc. with a licensed XP/Vista version on it will have the sticker on it from the factory and most people aren’t dumb enough to rip it off.
If someone built the PC themselves or swapped the tower, then they are SOL
The thing with OEM is you usually have to call and activate it(online fails) and you just say your HD shit the bed on your dell or whatever brand and you’re reinstalling/reactivating…