Lost Recovery Discs - help!!!

jonothan · Mar 24, 2008

Hi Guys!

Here's the story - anyone any ideas how I can sort this out?

Mrs J has a Packard Bell EasyNote L4 laptop which we bought two years ago after we'd had a burglary here and her earlier Hewlett Packard laptop was stolen.

Recently, it's been getting slower and slower so, after tweaking it and defragging it, I asked her to back up all her data and I set about reinstalling Windows XP using what I thought was the correct disc. Windows XP installed after a fashion but with no drivers, and I then realised that the discs she'd given me were those from her earlier (stolen) HP computer. And after searching high and low, we cannot find the system recovery discs for the EasyNote L4 anywhere.

So now we have a computer with no discs and no usable operating system as the drivers for the modem and the built in wireless aren't there anymore.

Does anyone know where I might get the discs I need, or where I might send the computer away to to get everything reinstalled?

Thanks in anticipation.

Jonothan

cookie · Mar 24, 2008

are the relevant drivers available on the HP website?

jonothan · Mar 24, 2008

cookie said:
are the relevant drivers available on the HP website?

Yeah, probably, but the XP on her computer now looks all wrong and it isn't licensed for that PC anyway. What I want is the whole lot redoing. Besides, I'm not sure what hardware is on her computer and need help with all of that stuff.

J

Clive · Mar 24, 2008

jonothan said:
Yeah, probably, but the XP on her computer now looks all wrong and it isn't licensed for that PC anyway. What I want is the whole lot redoing. Besides, I'm not sure what hardware is on her computer and need help with all of that stuff.

Get all available drivers
copy to CDROM and then run all on the (her) laptop.

It will look "wrong" as you have reinstalled from scratch and I expect she had customised a number of things.

If you have an XP install disc then it won't matter which Laptop you originally installed on.

cookie · Mar 24, 2008

cookie said:
are the relevant drivers available on the HP website?

not relevant, but...hewlett packard/packard bell...easy mistake

license: has it got the license sticker on it, and did you use that key?

if you've activated it anyway, don't worry.

jonothan · Mar 24, 2008

Thanks, Clive and Cookie!

Right - here's the state of play - I've managed to install the drivers - sound works now, wireless and modem both work and the display now looks good. But I haven't got the code to activate Windows as the code on the PC is for the new disc and not the (older) version of XP I've installed. What can I do to activate Windows without the code?

J

cookie · Mar 24, 2008

these are the options i can think of...

if it was a long time since the pc you got the key from was activated, it should activate again on the new machine. i've heard 165 days mentioned, but i can't vouch for that personally. not exactly legal, but should work.

if you find the key for the one you've reinstalled, you can use a keychange program to er, change the key and then activate that. that would be legal(ish).

buy a new OEM copy of windows (£55ish), and either use the key, or reinstall from scratch.

ring M$ and throw yourself on their mercy. no idea what would happen, but i have a sneaking suspicion they'd want $150.

jonothan · Mar 24, 2008

cookie said:
if you find the key for the one you've reinstalled, you can use a keychange program to er, change the key and then activate that. that would be legal(ish).

J

(All sorted!)

hops · Mar 24, 2008

i had a similar job

with a new installation a while ago. I can't remember exactly what I did but seem to remember that after trying an old key code a couple of times the computer came up with an option to call Microsoft via the phone. After I explained my predicament they gave me a new code free of charge. Worth a try?

Microsoft London (Cardinal Place)
100 Victoria Street
London SW1E 5JL
Tel: 0870 60 10 100

centaur · Mar 25, 2008

Prob a daft question at this stage, but did this laptop have a partitioned HDD with the 'recovery' system embedded ?

It usually shows as an option when the lappy is booted and b4 windoze loads, and is usually activated by a Function key like F11 or F12.

gpsonaPan · Mar 25, 2008

This here might help you.

If not then it might help someone else. :thumb2

http://support.thetechguys.com/layo...5e&CatID=0f14f6c1-95cb-4ba0-bcc3-22ac086e666a

It's about recovery discs for Packard Bell computers. :bow

Hope it works for ya!

Pat

Lost Recovery Discs - help!!!

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