[davidbowiesaidso]

I obviously dont know what to do..or what happened to it.

I tried reinstalling Xp using floppies... but it said I still neened the reinstall cd.. which I dont have..but my cd-rom doesn't work so that wont even help.

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Hi davidbowiesaidso,

Welcome to Geeks To Go, my name is Tony.

Please Click Here and read on how to repair windows.

[Alex_Harris]

The only problem with that is that in the guide step 3 says :

Step 3: Boot from your Windows XP CD. Insert the Windows XP CD into your computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer.

and davidbowiesaidso said:

I tried reinstalling Xp using floppies... but it said I still neened the reinstall cd.. which I dont have..but my cd-rom doesn't work so that wont even help.

Is your machine a branded machine ie Packard Bell, compaq, hp etc...) because sometimes on the boot options they have the Recovery Console as an option when you boot up...normally giving something like this:

Windows XP Home Edition
Windows Recovery Console

and having a choice of 1 or 2 and about a 5 second countdown. If it doesn't and the machine is a branded machine they sometimes have Non Desructive Restore (note this restore has nothing to do with the built in windows system restore which rolls back). The non destructive restore will keep your settings and reinstall the OS.

Hope this helps.

[davidbowiesaidso]

I have a dell..

so I dont think I have a recovery console..

thanks though..

Edited by davidbowiesaidso, 29 September 2005 - 09:12 PM.

[MarkDreams]

Dear Alex_Harris
I read this article with interest. I myself have a Dell Laptop and fear the day when the HD fails ... Not a problem replacing HD in a desk top machine but maybe with my Laptop I guess being a proprietary machine.
I looked in my "Laptop" box to find that I have an OS Reinstallation disk supplied by Dell. Question is how would you get the CD drive working if your OS fails to recognise the drive? Might you enlighten me please?

Dear davidbowiesaidso
Do you have a working OS that does not recognise the CD drive? I was thinking if you could get the CD drive working again via the device manager then maybe you could ask Dell for a copy disk? Perhaps you could try using an external CD Drive unit; or get the internal one working via the device manager. Do you have any OS working at all?

[Fenor]

Actually the hard drives in laptops are standardized, it's the connection plate that attaches the hard drive to the laptop itself that is proprietary to a certain machine. As long as you have that piece, youw ill be able to pop it off the end of the bad hard drive and attach it to the new one and you will be able to insert it back into the laptop and it'll work just like the old one, after you format it and install the OS again fo course.

Fenor

[MarkDreams]

Dear Fenor
Thanks for that. Has given me peace of mind.
MarkDreams.