Re-build Vista without a CD? - Acer Laptop

champ222 · 5 Oct 2008 at 18:29

Hiya Guys.

I want to rebuild my girfriends Acer Laptop, its running vista home basic, and its a right mess.

I would like to do a fresh install of vista home basic on it, but i have no cd/dvd for it, although, even if i did, i'd rather do a clean install than an "acer" install.

now, whether i legally should or not, could i download or obtain a version of vista, install and use the key on the bottom of the laptop?

i want it to be legal, and as far as i can see, if i install vista home basic, and use the product key on the bottom of the laptop it would be legal wouldnt it??

i have never installed Vista before, much different from XP?

Thanks a lot guys

Andy

Shadows1990 · 5 Oct 2008 at 18:54

The install is a lot smoother than the XP if you ask me.

Regarding the legality of the job, I think you'll be OK downloading it, as long as you have a legal key.

swinnie · 5 Oct 2008 at 19:04

I would suggest that you ask around your friends to see if anyone has a Vista Home Basic disk they can lend you, you will then be able to use the key on the bottom of the laptop.

Downloading is a bit risky as some could contain nasties such as malware/spyware - which is a high possibility.

I think you can also order replacement media from Microsoft for about £7 I believe.

Amp34 · 5 Oct 2008 at 19:13

Any DVD of any Version of Vista should be ok I think as all the DVD's are the same? At least they were.

BigBoy · 5 Oct 2008 at 21:22

DVD has all versions on it its the Key that makes the difference.

ticktock · 5 Oct 2008 at 22:26

Yea, the key is the important bit, the legal bit.

champ222 · 6 Oct 2008 at 15:15

cheers guys.

one more question, i was thinking of upgrading the ram to 2 gb it currently has 1 gb (2x 512K sticks)

which would be best? 1x 2gb stick? or 2x 1gb sticks?

i read on the specs it only supports 2gb max, but further reading showed that some versions of the laptop will take 4gb, depends on the chipset apparently, further reading is required to know which version this is, and if indeed it is the case at all.

Thanks again

Brian Stuart · 6 Oct 2008 at 16:06

if the chipset can support 4Gb then go for 1x2GB and add another 2Gb in the future

Snakedoctor · 6 Oct 2008 at 16:12

I would check first, make sure you know what hardware you have and how many free memory slots there are. I would guess at two slots in total so 1*2gb may be best so you can update in the future if possible and if supported. The PC may not even supprt ram sticks of that size. Read up first.

champ222 · 6 Oct 2008 at 17:51

ok, i'll research first, thanks.

One more Q, there is a 10gig partition which is not shown in windows, but it is in disc management, i'm assuming its some sort of acer recovery ********, ok to delete it?

thanks again guys, youve been a great help as usual

ticktock · 6 Oct 2008 at 23:23

champ222 said:
ok, i'll research first, thanks.

One more Q, there is a 10gig partition which is not shown in windows, but it is in disc management, i'm assuming its some sort of acer recovery ********, ok to delete it?

thanks again guys, youve been a great help as usual

As long as you have all the drivers etc then yes.

MagicBoy · 6 Oct 2008 at 23:31

You sure there's not a recovery partition to set it back to how it came out of the box?

There's usually a message on bootup to press a particular key (eg F11).