Windows media center

zaza · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:06

Hi, I'm fixing some computers here, but they are not like mine in that it has xp pro, it has Media center edition, the hard drive needs cleaning, you can't get to the desktop, or get to the recovery. His serial is stuck onto the side of his case, but he has no disks or recovery disks, so I'm thinking, use a media center edition CD and format the drive, but I'm not sure it's that strait forward. What do I do? The other pc gets to the recovery page, but then it asks for the gateway recovery disks, which I don't have, all I have is a serial on the case.

HEADRAT · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:15

Step away from the computers as it's obvious you don't have a clue what you are doing!

HEADRAT

zaza · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:18

Don't take the ****, either answer the question, or naff off.

Dingleberry88 · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:20

That's not going to get you much help...

zaza · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:21

yeah, well what good are **** takers? Waste of time.. Any monkey can build a pc and install an os, but sometimes these little things that I've never encountered before get me stuck, but I don't have to have 5 clait degrees and be a uber pc geek to be deserved of help..

zaza · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:41

Maybe I should be a bit more clear. If it was my own PC that had the same problem, I probably wouldn't have recovery partitions, so I would just format and reinstall using my win xp CD and key. With these, they are Gateway Media Center Edition, and Acer, which have recovery partitions. I can get to the Gateway recovery, but I don't have the Gateway disks, and so I can't recovery the OS. On the Acer, I can't even get to the recovery. So, I think to myself, maybe I could use a regular windows media center disk, and just format the drives and reinstall, it might not be gateway/acer, but that hardly matters. Would that work? I've never used windows media center edition before. A friend of mine says you don't get the actual disk with these PC's, but instead, just a recovery disk, which I don't have.

Dingleberry88 · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:43

As long as the key's for MCE and not just XP there shouldn't be any problem doing that.

zaza · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:44

I see, and I can then make my own recovery on a partition and create a disk?

Dingleberry88 · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:46

I guess... there's not really much point.

Just pop the disc in, delete any partitions, format the drive to NTFS and install MCE.

zaza · 26 Apr 2007 at 15:50

Okay, thanks.

HEADRAT · 26 Apr 2007 at 16:13

Let's hope there's no data on that disc that is needed :eek:

zaza · 26 Apr 2007 at 16:19

What do you mean? edit- oh I see.

Meatball · 26 Apr 2007 at 21:46

What I would do in your situation is do a full format, stuff the recovery partitions, they're bloated with **** anyway! If you don't have any WinXP MCE disks there are many sites that offer .ISOs of the disks (The CD's contents in 1 file that simply needs burning to a blank CD-R using Nero etc.) Try plugging the hard drive into a working computer and getting any data off it from the 'My Documents' folder etc. After that bang in the XP MCE disks you've burnt and delete all partitions, format and install. Before you do this I would HIGHLY advise you research what you're doing, double check what O/S the pc is using, as the installation disks MUST match the O/S installed (ie. XP MCE 2005 OEM disks must be used when installing XP MCE 2005 OEM.) What you need to remember is even if you download the CDs, as long as you install the O/S with the Serial key on that computer, your installation will be legal and activate fine, it's not the disks that cost money it's the license. Before doing anything I would also advice searching for all the most up-to-date drivers for the PC on the net and burning them onto a disk.