I have a dell laptop my sister gave me because the drive died, I can't get anything off it even with a linux disc it's just locked up, there is no windows sticker on the bottom of the unit, and she had not made recovery discs UGH
I have plenty of sata drives around but without their product key for windows is there anyway thru the service id tag or anything to get windows back onto this machine without buying another copy of it?
I know there are programs i could use to recover the product key via the old drive but i can't even get the drive to boot up externally or via a linux recovery type cd.
It's not a super old laptop just that drive died, I was going to replace the drive load windows on it and have the kids use it for simple open office reports and to goof on facebook and whatnot with it.
I know I could just load linux on it, but i'd like to get them back into windows, but with a dead drive do I have any options?