My computer came with Windows 8 (non-pro) preinstalled and I would like to do a clean reinstall of 8.1 on a new hard disk.
Since there is no OEM key anymore, what should I do to activate once the OS is installed?
I ahad updatedmy wife's laptop acer spire 5740 G from windows 7 to 8 and then updated to 8.1. She did not like os and asked me to revert back to 7. After running setup I formated the drivve C containing windows 8. But now computer doesnt boot and I tried to reinstall teh system but I cant see my hard disk- Setup runs till where do you want to install your OS and then I cant find my hard disk
View 9 Replies View RelatedI'm thinking of buying a new Dell desktop but not interested in Windows 8. With my current Dell desktop I have the Windows 7 OEM disk for reinstallation. Could I use that disk to install Windows 7 on a new Dell PC (or maybe even just a partition of it) or will it refuse to install because it's a different machine?
View 3 Replies View RelatedWhat is the procedure for walking in a unit to Dell Canada for repair? How do I protect my confidential data? Will Dell repair my two month old machine if i walk in without their OEM hard drive?? I hope to they do. What if it were stolen? I don't care about the cost and don't want anything for free, I just want to get my system working so I can rebuild it. I am only on an iPad.
View 15 Replies View RelatedI recently purchased a dell inspiron 14 5000 with a windows 8.1 preinstalled; I would like to reinstall the operating system and partition the hard, but I didn't get a copy of Windows (and a disc would not be actually useful since the laptop doesn't have a CD unit) which is the easiest way to reconfigure my laptop?
View 1 Replies View RelatedMy hard disk crashed. I have a recovery cd created on the time of purchase. I bought a new hard disk for this purpose. Now when I am trying to recover from the same cd it is getting stuck at 40 % showing error. I searched for this error and got something as such recovery disk can work on OEM hd. As my old hd has crashed how can I recover over there. Is there any system that dell provide me with necessary operating system so that atleast I can use my system.
View 7 Replies View RelatedMy mSATA partition has been deleted when I was recovering the windows. how can I install it again. My computer was quite faster than now.
Also, my "Disk 0" seems strange but i dont know why?
Let's say your computer comes with Windows 8 (not 8 Pro) preinstalled, using a SLIC and not a product key. Yu decide you hate the OEM crapware and want to do a clean reinstall. Bt you don't have reinstallation media, or the media includes the crapware.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI recently did a clean reinstall of windows because I was having random BSOD/freeze issues. Everything has been fine for the last two weeks or so but I just got another BSOD playing League, and then about half an hour later I had a spike of CPU usage that froze my comp for about 30 seconds.
View 1 Replies View RelatedMy laptop is still running Vista, so when I upgrade to Windows 8, I'll have to do a clean install.
I don't mind having to re-install all my programs, but I need to be certain I'll be able to re-install Office 2007, since there's no way I'm going to buy it twice for a single computer.
I've read that Office can indeed be re-installed after the upgrade, but I haven't found any information on exactly how to do this. Any step-by-step guide on re-installing Office, including a list of all the information/codes I'll need to get hold of (for example, will I need to find my product key?) for the process?
what is the best way to install a clean version windows 8 pro without losing my files, data and programs. I want to do that because my windows 8 became so slow and takes very long time to respond. whatsoever program or browser I open, takes some time ranging 30 sec to 5 minutes!! This thing never happened before as now I get not responding message on the window of each program...
Is there a way on how to do that?
I wiped my pb eastnote TE. I was restoring it to factory settings, i thought id just have put in my usb and it would reinstall everything for me, but it hasnt.. what to do, error mes im getting it ;there was a problem while resetting your pc, all I am getting is a blue screen, but the options they are giving me are not working...
View 7 Replies View RelatedI tried to reinstall windows on a second hard drive, but it won't accept my product key, assumedly because I am already using it for the current windows installation on the first hard drive.
How do I transfer my license to allow a reinstallation on the second hard drive? That's the best option, so I can go back to the first drive if I want to.
Second option: If I wipe the current windows partition clean, will that enable me to reinstall on the second hard drive?
I do this day in and day out with Volume Licensing but never with OEM installs...
A user that works at our company brought their personal laptop in, the hard drive failed hard drive tests so we have put one of our spare hard drives in and now we need to re-install Windows 8 x64.
Where do i get the installation media from if the users doesn't have a disc? Is it possible or do we need to order a disc?
I have a newer Toshiba laptop that I tried to clean reinstall Windows 8 using the "reset" feature. I wiped the hard drive completely deleting all partitions. Now I cannot boot into anything. Short of ordering recovery dvds from Toshiba, is there a legal way to reinstall Windows 8 back on this laptop?
View 2 Replies View RelatedHave you found that the hard space of your computer was gradually eaten up by all the files you unlikely know? If you’re haunted a lot by such a problem and want to stop it, you just need to download Colorful Disk Clean and totally relax yourself. Colorful Disk Clean will scan all the folders or files and recover the disk space whenever you want.
The color-coded sunburst map clearly displays both the hierarchical structure of files and folder and the relative size of each. What’s the most important, with a simple drag and drop, you can remove all the system files and other items that you no longer need.
I am about to upgrade another PC (about 4 months old) currently running Windows 7 64bit. The PC is set up so that although the PC has the OS and programs on the SSD (C drive), all other data and info is on the 2Tb hard drive. Their is only a single user with no password and the PC was setup (configured) so that the user profile knows to put that user info and data on the 2Tb hard drive.
I want to do a clean install and am happy to clear everything on the C drive (SSD) and the hard drive. When installing Windows 8 from the ISO image on a DVD, how do I create the similar situation that I had for user profile when running Windows 7?
Also is it possible to be able to boot up straight in to the user without having to enter a password, as I can currently do on the Windows 7 boot?
I have just upgraded an older Windows Vista PC to Windows 8 Pro through a clean install and that went perfectly, but only had a single 1Tb hard drive (C drive).
What is a good program to clean empty space on a hard drive and to clear off things that have been deleted.
I am using Windows 8 x64
Can I boot from usb any more if I use diskpart to clean my disk on surface? I want to know whether its still need some boot efi file in the hidden partition when booting from usb.
View 1 Replies View RelatedWe bought some DELL Optiplex 3010 with Win8Pro OEM licenses.
But we only have WinXP or Win7Pro computers on our company. We want to make a Clean installation with Win7Pro DVD on each machine, and use OEM license.
How to do this? Now OEM licenses are not shown outside computer.
I bought a new XPS 13" Ultrabook this year and all worked fine. However, all of a sudden the laptop does not boot anymore. I am wondering if there is a way to reinstall windows 8 or to recover everything? I made I diagnostic check (F12 when booting) but no errors are found. However, my problem is that the laptop has a) no CD player and b) I also have not received another device like a USB stick with the software with the laptop. How can I reinstall the system?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm trying to reinstall win8 Pro w/ Media Center on an older Dell C2D system for a friend. She has no discs as she got it from her brother for x-mas a little while back and she's unable to get them as he lives out of state.
I used a program to extract the keys, but it seems that the media center add-on has overridden the pro key and it wont let me install windows. I noticed it gave me an internet explorer key that was different from the win8 key, but it rejected that too.
Is there a way to extract the original win8 pro key? I couldn't seem to find anything with google.
I purchased a dell inspiron 5521 a few months back but i didn't get any windows 8 CD with it. I have to reinstall my windows, but when i try to do it with my friend's original windows CD, error says product key entered is different. I don't even know the product key for my windows 8.
View 4 Replies View RelatedAll my partitions got wiped out and it seems as if I have no existing installation of Windows 8 on my laptop anymore.
How can I reinstall my Windows. Finally, where is the product key for the Windows 8 written?
So i have a 12 duo, and it has been acting slow lately and i figured it is time to bring it back to its younger days. I tried doing the reset within windows 8, but it asked for installation/recovery media, which i don't have. And i know what you're thinking, just use the recovery partition. No can do... it is gone. I do not remember getting rid of it but anyways, its not an option. I tried creating a recovery usb via this link but my key did not work for retail versions. What can I do?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI bought yesterday an OptiPlex 7010 with windows 8. Product key is in the bios as I have read on the internet. Due to a crash of the os I had to reinstall windows 8 using the operating system cd included in the package. I have booted from dvd. After a clean reinstallation the os is not activated and I can not do anything about it because no product key is available. What should I do?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI am having trouble reinstalling windows 8 on my Dell XPS 8500. Since installing a new SSD and having reset the BIOS using a jumper, my copy of Windows 8 will no longer detect my product key that i assume is embedded in the BIOS.
View 11 Replies View Relatedi have recently brought Inspiron 14 3421, it came with per-installed Windows 8 and Wave Max Audio 4 software. The product i brought had issue so i handed over to Dell Authorized Service Center here, so for service purpose DASC guys uninstalled OS and re-installed but after re-installation i could not find out Wave Max Audio 4 software. how to reinstall Max Audio 4 software?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI have bought a Dell Inspiron 15R which arrived this week. I have already decided that I am going to install my own copy of Windows 8.1 Professional on to my system.
I have tried this several times now and I keep failing. I am booting from my DVD and the install goes fine. However during install I am normally prompted to enter my Serial for 8.1 and it does not do this. It progresses as though everything is ok, I can format the Hard drive and then it proceeds to install Windows 8.1.
Once fully installed I then go to see if it is activated and to my surprise it is. It has activated with the same Serial as the OEM that came with the laptop.
I have also noticed that this copy of 8.1 cannot join the laptop to my own domain (the options to do this are greyed out) which I am also wanting to do. So this copy of 8.1 is not the copy I am trying to install.
How can I install my own copy of 8.1. I think this is something to do with Dells bios configuration but not sure where to start.
I installed W8 successfully about a month ago and all went well. The only recent change I have made is to install Startmenu8 to get a more normal Windows look. Last weekend my computer screen went dark blue and the mouse seemed not to function. I changed batteries and rebooted. However all I got was my desktop with no task bar and no icons. The programmes showed up along the bottom but would not open maximised so I couldn't use them. I have run the diagnostics on F12 at start up. All was ok according to that. I wanted to restore to a previous point so I managed to boot from my CD drive with the recovery disk (W8 version) but it said that both my restore point and image wouldn't work. I therefore tried to do a clean install of W8 but that wouldn't work. It just hung after several hours. I tried the same with W7 but with the same result.
My machine came with Vista so I installed that from the Dell recovery disk. This worked. I then tried to upgrade to W7 SP1 (an upgrade which would never install back in the day) from a CD I downloaded off the Windows website. That went on all night with the machine interminably rebooting. Still hung this morning. So I reinstalled Vista as above (clean) and tried to install W7 from the original upgrade CD. This hung also. The reason I haven't gone straight to W8 is that I think I have an image from a few months ago before I upgraded to 8.
I've just started restoring from a reasonably W7 image in Vista. Cross fingers but it seems to be working. However, I wanted to do a clean install and wonder why neither W7 nor 8 would complete.
My Dell XPS One 2710 was delivered with Windows 8 with wrong language. Dell therefore sent me a Windows 8 MUI Recovery Media-DVD, and told me to follow the instructions on this link: [URL] .....
At the first installation attempt I got to a point where a pop up asked for drivers. I didn't know which drivers, and I thought everything was included on the DVD (but even the DVD-ROM wasn't recognized, only "Boot (X:)"). I read a tip in the Dell forum to change the boot setup to legacy. So I did and I got a few steps further to the point where you shall choose the partition(s) under the custom menu. But no partitions were found. Perhaps the reason was the 32 GB mSATA with Intel rapid storage technology.
So I did exactly the following:
1. I downloaded the newest version of the IRST-driver and extracted the files to a USB device.
2. I booted from the recovery DVD (UEFI, safety mode: ON).
3. When it asked for the driver I installed the IRST-driver from the USB device (AHCI, 64 bit, located in the driver-folder - the only words I recognized from the forums... 0:).
4. A total of six partitions were shown: Partition 1 ("ESP", System), partition 2 ("DIAGS", OEM (reserved)), partition 3 (MSR (reserved)), partition 4 ("WINRETOOLS", recovery), partition 5 ("OS", primary), and partition 6 ("PBR Image", recovery).
5. I followed the instructions in the link (above) and deleted all of the partitions.
6. I installed Windows 8 on the new partition, without further complications.
7. I ran Windows Update.
8. I installed the Dell drivers for this service tag, in the order specified by Dell, starting with chipset, card reader, IRST, audio, video, network and everything else, and with a reboot between every single driver installation. The system, including the IRST, seems to work fine so far (no exclamation marks in the Device Manager).
9. I replaced some of the software, including Dell Backup and Recovery.
I started Dell Backup and Recovery and the program initially told me that it couldn't find a recovery partition, and therefore couldn't backup the system. Other programs in the Control Panel, like File History and Storage Spaces, can't find available drives.
The Disk Management tells me the following about my 1 TB HDD:
EFI System Partition 100 MB - Recovery Partition 898 MB - Primary partition (NTFS, boot, page file, crash dump) 930.11 MB - Recovery OEM partiton 300 MB - Recovery OEM partiton NTFS 300 MB
So finally to my questions: Should I have kept one or more of the recovery partitions during the Windows 8 installation? Could this affect Windows' System Restore (I guess not since Windows creates its own recovery partitions)?
And finally: Is Dell Backup and Recovery any useful? I already have the recovery DVD in case I need a factory reset. For backup purposes I will use a cloud service, and maybe a NAS in the future. Do I even need a recovery partition?