Vista not loading - demanding a reinstall!

[Hen_Dawg]

Hi

Need a bit of advice on this one. My cousin's Lenovo laptop gives a window up after logon saying something like "insert windows installation DVD or CD into your computer to begin the reinstallation process".
We can't get into Vista except through safe mode. Also the pre-loaded, 3rd party recovery software is loadable but that not really gonna help the issue.

She's has it just under a month and hasn't registered it but says it has not prompted her to either so this has come out of the blue. I presume you still need to activate the OS with laptops? She was not supplied with a recovery/backup CD or DVD of any kind so what can be done?
Help!

 

[Hen_Dawg]

Just trying a full recovery reinstall via the second partition thing provided.
Hope that sorts it and lets her activate as if the 30 days start again

 

[Mattus]

If the laptop came with Vista installed, it should have been pre-activated. Even if the activation hadn't been completed, Vista wouldn't ask you to reinstall from the DVD - it would just drop into a reduced functionality mode until you'd done the activation.

Sounds like something else is wrong with the Vista installation. Reinstalling from the recovery partition is not a bad idea.

 

[Hen_Dawg]

Thanks mattus. When i left the house it was well under way with the full reinstall so i'll see how she got on. Silly girl had no virus or spyware protection for the couple of weeks she was online but the problem seemed too 'official' to be anything like that