Re-installing Windows with OEM Cd

DannyBZR

Hi,

Hope someone can help with this. I'm going to do a repair of windows xp on a friends machine. the problem is that the person has lost their windows OEM disk which is a Packard Bell machine. and I want to use the disk that I got with my dell machine to do the repair, not using my keys or anything, just to repair the system files etc.....

Both version of Xp are the same "Home Edition"

Should there be any problems with this.??

Help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

aidan_walsh

I'm not sure would the key for one manufacturer work with another's disk.

DannyBZR

aidan_walsh wrote:

I'm not sure would the key for one manufacturer work with another's disk.

Its not the key that I will be useing, I want to just reinstall the system files by doing a repair....

WillieDH

Won't work....

The OEM recovery disks are BIOS locked, i.e. a dell disk looks for a dell bios, once it see's it the install will start.

If it see's a PB bios it just won't work, get you hands on a PB recovery disk, I'm sure someone here will want to help.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

W

DannyBZR

WillieDH wrote:

Won't work....

The OEM recovery disks are BIOS locked, i.e. a dell disk looks for a dell bios, once it see's it the install will start.

If it see's a PB bios it just won't work, get you hands on a PB recovery disk, I'm sure someone here will want to help.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

W

If I was to just get a retail copy of xp would that do the trick if nobody here can point me in the right direction....

WillieDH

Shoot, I'm the real bringer of bad news,

Nope, retail versions of XP need to be activated, the system profiles the make up of the system, if another system makeup tries to activate the same licence key from the retail version it shuts itself down.

Sorry !!!

Only solution without spending money is to get a PB recovery disk,,,

W

DannyBZR

WillieDH wrote:

Shoot, I'm the real bringer of bad news,

Nope, retail versions of XP need to be activated, the system profiles the make up of the system, if another system makeup tries to activate the same licence key from the retail version it shuts itself down.

Sorry !!!

Only solution without spending money is to get a PB recovery disk,,,

W

Is there any other way that I can repair the system files in Xp without the need of the disk. Getting a lot of dll error, "Cannot be Found etc"

WillieDH

You might be able to use a retail version to repair, dont know for sure though.

Hope you are getting paid for this, big pain the sphincter !!!

W

DannyBZR

WillieDH wrote:

You might be able to use a retail version to repair, dont know for sure though.

Hope you are getting paid for this, big pain the sphincter !!!

W

If only I was:) Its actually my girlfriend parents machine, and they have decided to Fook around with it and the wireless router will no longer work.. Cannot run set up or access it manually through the web browser.. And when I try and install the Install wizard for is the error "cannot find dll" appears and the install stops... There is another couple of dll errors as well on start up so there is obviously an issue somewhere along the line...

And lucky me these has all to be done while I write my Dissertation...Lovely

zilog_jones

Have you actually tried the Dell OEM CD? It might work - they don't *always* have BIOS locks, though it's very unlikely it doesn't.

Surely there is some way of getting rid of the BIOS check from the CD (i.e. copying all the other files to another CD)? Is it just the bootloader that is different from a generic OEM CD?

DannyBZR

zilog_jones wrote:

Have you actually tried the Dell OEM CD? It might work - they don't *always* have BIOS locks, though it's very unlikely it doesn't.

Surely there is some way of getting rid of the BIOS check from the CD (i.e. copying all the other files to another CD)? Is it just the bootloader that is different from a generic OEM CD?

I dont want to try the disk unless I'm pretty sure that it will work, because I dont have a way to back up there machine so I'l be in the pan if it all goes wrong

I'm not sure what the exact differences are to be honest. Now come to think of it, I changed the MB on my pc, got rid off all my dell parts and used the OEM disk to install Xp, now that was a fresh install, the harddrive was formatted.

The only problem that I had was that I couldn't activate it because the key was showing that it was already used.

zilog_jones

DannyBZR wrote:

I dont want to try the disk unless I'm pretty sure that it will work, because I dont have a way to back up there machine so I'l be in the pan if it all goes wrong

With BIOS locked Windows CDs, it'll either work with no problems at all or just tell you right at the start that it's not running on the brand of PC it's supposed to be on and will not operate at all.

I'm not sure what the exact differences are to be honest. Now come to think of it, I changed the MB on my pc, got rid off all my dell parts and used the OEM disk to install Xp, now that was a fresh install, the harddrive was formatted.

Well it doesn't sound like it's BIOS locked at all then!

The only problem that I had was that I couldn't activate it because the key was showing that it was already used.

Well if the motherboard was a replacement for the Dell one (I assume which wasn't in use any more), I think you should be entitled to just ring up MS and get it re-activated. That may be very creative use of the OEM license but they don't really care as long as the license is only being used on the one PC.

DannyBZR

Well the repair is not for my own pc, Its just I need the disk for another pc for a repair, so I am hopping that when I run the repair on the other machine that It will just repair the system files and not interfere with anything else on that machine.. That machine has its own license key and whatever else, they just dont have the system disk for it