Recovery Media damaged

celica140bhp

Spot of bother here. My sister decided to "restore her laptop to factory settings" so put in the CD and started the process but it failed after about 17% due to being unable to read the disk - looks badly scratched. Now the laptop won't boot up at all and the recovery media is no use so is there any way around this.
Cheers

ZygOte

only two choices here (both assume the hard disk is not damaged, the recovery wont have damaged the disk)

1. call the manufacturer and get a replacement recovery disk

2. you can (providing you have a copy of your operating system e.g windows xp) boot from the O/S disk and do a manual installation of windows, then download and install all necessary video and sound card drivers etc.

thats basically it.

id go for option 2 easilly but it depends on how technically comfortable you are with doing it yourself.

commited

What OS does she have?
Contact the laptops manufacturer and ask for a new recovery cd.
Alternatively borrow the necessary OS cd from a friend and use her serial number with it. I think that is legal..

A fresh none manufacturer install is always better imho. Factory installations are horrible

SolarNexus

get yourself a cd repair kit like "Disk Doctor" or somesuch (a company makes loads of them under similar names: DVD Doctor, CD Doctor etc), it should shave off the scratches if their not on the front-label side (which holds the data).

then format, reinstall and create a backup copyof the cd immediately.

celica140bhp

Thanks for the free support folks.

I think she'll have to go back to the manufacturer (Averatec) and get new disks. I've tried to make a copy of her CD and also tried using my own XP install disks from my PC (from Dell) but it won't recognise either.
I'm coming from an Apple history so all this difficulty is new to me
Cheers anyway

Karoma

Good luck with that.. Most manufacturers charge a,uh,substantial amount for the discs. It would be the most straightforward solution.
However,as suggested previously: You may also want to keep in mind the other option: Retail Windows disc + download the OEM drivers
(Drivers: http://support.averatec.com/downloads.asp )

SolarNexus

Karoma wrote:

Good luck with that.. Most manufacturers charge a,uh,substantial amount for the discs. It would be the most straightforward solution.
However,as suggested previously: You may also want to keep in mind the other option: Retail Windows disc + download the OEM drivers
(Drivers: http://support.averatec.com/downloads.asp )

if your still under warantee, ring them up acting like a loonatic that just bought a computer for the first time in their life (IE. thinks a screensaver is a virus... belive me it happens) and tell them your pc isnt working and you dont have the disks; with any luck they'll send you the disks for free, but if you just ask outright they'll be more pickey.

ozt9vdujny3srf

weh?

They'll send the discs for free anyway!

Its not like it costs them any more then 2 euros

SolarNexus

Alan Rapid Thinner wrote:

weh?

They'll send the discs for free anyway!

Its not like it costs them any more then 2 euros

you'd be surprised, sometimes you have to put on a show for the dullards at the end of the phone or they just dont care enough to pay attention; its pathetic really *sigh*

commited

Alan Rapid Thinner wrote:

weh?

They'll send the discs for free anyway!

Its not like it costs them any more then 2 euros

It's not about what it costs them Have you learnt nothing about retail computer suppliers! I'll be surprised if they dont charge, like most other companys.