Ok, im asking again because im not sure the other group of answerers understood my question fully.
I just ordered an inspiron e1705 laptop from dell, with windows vista home premium. I understand it comes with the vista reinstall disk.
Now my question is, if I were to swap out the hard drive that came with the system for a new one off of newegg, can I install vista onto that new hard drive? Same computer registered for vista, just a different hard drive.
Some people say there are hidden partitions on the hard drive that enable the reinstall disk to work only on that system, don't know if that's true or not.
Also don't hold back answers, im not a novice to computers, just to dell. If it was possible to buy a laptop shell and build one yourself, i'd be doing that instead.
2007-02-13 15:27:16 · 5 answers · asked by Jake 4 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Laptops & Notebooks
Dell machines have a custom partition on their drives. You can boot to this and do diagnostics, or reinstall the OS. It acts like the boot floppy that nobody has any more (no floppy drive). It USUSALLY also holds a copy of the reinstall disk, so you can do the lot.
SO- if you replace the drive, you are missing out on all that goodness. Depending on how much you mess around with your PC, this can be No Great Loss, or a Real Bad Thing. Up to you, really.
If you want all that stuff, you can TRY copying it off the old drive, or check out the drivers etc. at Dell. With luck, you should be able to re-create this partition IF you need it.
BUT- Vista should install without it. The Windows Authentication Label (with number) should be a little sticker on the bottom of the laptop.
2007-02-13 16:36:19 · answer #1 · answered by Alan 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
most OEM installs from Manufactures such as Dell, HP ect usually do have small partion with the restore information... However most manufactures of hard drives either ship with or make a download available to do a disk copy and make an mirror image on to the new hard drive you get. That you just have to hope it passes the MS WAG
2007-02-13 23:36:53 · answer #2 · answered by aprileaton04 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, you can.
Might require a call to Microsoft, but you received the license for Vista with the computer.
2007-02-13 23:36:00 · answer #3 · answered by Jim 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Jake Your story? Very interesting......
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2007-02-13 23:57:47 · answer #4 · answered by dif h 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, indeed u can do it. U can even create ur own back up os cd and do it.
2007-02-14 00:42:01 · answer #5 · answered by RP 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋