Dell Recovery Disk specific XP version?

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:


I have never seen a recent Dell laptop without a recovery CD. Are you really
sure yours doesn't have one? Have you consulted the manual that came with
the laptop?

AFAIK, all suppliers of PCs with Windows preloaded are required either to
provide a bootable Windows CD or else a bootable recovery CD. Yours would be
no exception. Make sure to save all important files (including your EMail
files!) prior to attempting a recovery.


My 2-year-old HP desktop and 2-month-old Compaq laptop did not include
any bootable CD's, just a recovery partition on the hard disk that
allows restoring the computer to its factory-shipped configuration. Both
manuals, skimpy as they were, recommended creating restoration disks as
one of the first tasks in setting up the computer.

My 5-year-old Dell laptop did have a Windows CD as well as several other
CD's that came with the machine.

Bill

Yeah... at my very advanced age, I've already learned to feel a little
trepidation when it comes to SP3 - some laptops seem not to take well to it
at all, so I've avoided it so far!



"Master Blaster" wrote:

One caution on DELL Recovery Disks.

They will be for the original installations which is usually WinXP (Pro,
Home, etc.) SP2.

If you have installed *SP3*, THE DELL RECOVERY DISKS WILL NOT WORK.

This is true for any OEM supplied "Recovery" disks, especially laptops.

For laptop users, I highly suggest you DO NOT install SP3. Laptops are
tricky enough, without dealing with the SP3 issue.


--
===============
Master Blaster
Computer System Specialist
IT Technician


"Hogweed" wrote in message
:

Well, I didn't get as far as trying to get them to send a disk to the UK -
but in general, when I've tried to work with US sites for manufacturers
before, they always push me to the UK site. And of course postage would be a
lot quicker. The UK site came back up, and I've requested one. Unacknowledged
so far...

Anyway, after working on this damn thing for perhaps 14 hours, I gave up and
did an image restore using Ghost last night. She's lost some recent stuff,
but the relief of having the laptop back and working again more than
compensated.

Thanks a lot to everybody who tried to help me here - it really makes a
difference to know you're not alone sometimes!


"Steve" wrote:

Just curious... Why do you need an "equivalent" page? Can't access the
page or Dell won't ship to UK, ??
Steve

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:24:04 -0700, Hogweed
wrote:

Thanks Steve - just trying to find if there's an equivalent page on the UK
site, but it appears to be down today... trouble is, as so often with IT,
being without her PC for the few days that'd take to organise is very bad, so
I've got to persevere in he meantime. But I'll certainly try and take
advantage of that if I can get to the UK site.

"Steve" wrote:

Found a Dell page saying "Dell Customers can now request a set of
backup discs containing the factory-installed operating system as well
as the device drivers and utilities specific to your system".

The form does request your service tag and order number. If you have
these, check out

https://support.dell.com/support/top.../backupcd_form

Steve


On Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:36:01 -0700, Hogweed
wrote:

Hi - I'm trying to restore a laptop which has been comprehensively wrecked by
a virus (yt8a.exe - look forward to it). It's a Dell, and isn't supplied with
an XP or recovery disk as such. Dell expect you to prepare your own recovery
disk, using a utility on the laptop. Unfortunately, I can no longer boot XP,
though I can see all the files on the disk when I attach it to another
computer as a slave, using an adapter.

There's an i386 directory on the disk - can I make a basic XP CD to restore
her laptop just using that? I know from experience that I can't just use any
old XP CD from another computer with her license key - will using her i386
directory install the correct version to use with her key?

I can't see any other way of restoring her computer... urgent of course.

Thanks for any help provided.