TheTechGuide Forum

General Category => Tech Clinic => Topic started by: mindlogiczero on January 14, 2009, 03:20:51 AM

Title: reformat help
Post by: mindlogiczero on January 14, 2009, 03:20:51 AM

just bought a pc from a friend. it's a dell inspiron 531. well my friend doesnt have the discs and cd key that was originally on it so i cant reformat it with disk. can i some how factory restore it with the restore partion on the harddrive alone? if so how? also he put windows xp pro on it, if that changes anything on getting the original vista back. think i read that when you reformat a dell you dont have to renter the cd key for vista? thanks.

Title: reformat help
Post by: guestolo on January 14, 2009, 02:10:37 PM

The computer may still have a hidden partition with the original Vista
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/glo...mp;docid=336966 (http://\"http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?journalid=606FBF11FDCED06FE040AE0AB6E13DF0&docid=336966\")

Title: reformat help
Post by: newbiz02 on January 18, 2009, 04:48:34 PM

Always have an os cd when doing any thing like that.
you will need it.