Reinstalling Windows

Freaky Dug · 2 Jun 2007 at 22:16

My sister's laptop is dying and everything I've tried to get rid of virusses and spyware, clean the registry, etc. hasn;t helped at all. It's slow, buggy and it crashes all the time. I'm starting to think the only thing that can sort it out is a reformat and reinstalll from scratch.

Problem is, Dell didn't give us a windows CD. All we got was a piece of card with a picture of a CD and a message saying we wouldn't needon cos they'd already installed it for us. My question is, can I use the Windows install CD from my computer and just put the CD-Key from the windows label thingy on the laptop in? I'd like to know it's gonna work before I reformat the hard drive.

I will be very grateful if anyone can help me sort this out so my sister will stop bugging me.

Felix Da Housecat · 2 Jun 2007 at 22:21

Hi there,

From what i've learnt, if you put your disk in and use her CD Key then i'm not 100% sure if it will work or not, but i do know that if you format the drive it will remove the Dell partition and you wont be able to install the software that was put on by Dell.

If it all goes wrong then you will have to purchase a new version of Windows, unless you have a corporate version.

J1234 · 2 Jun 2007 at 22:23

Iirc, the Dell PCs/Laptops have a app on them that allow you to make a OS recover disk which will reinstall windows for you.

Freaky Dug · 2 Jun 2007 at 22:29

Justin said:
Iirc, the Dell PCs/Laptops have a app on them that allow you to make a OS recover disk which will reinstall windows for you.

Ah ha! I think I've found it and I'm making one now, Thanks.