[Cj83]

I have a Dell laptop with Vista in it. One day it said that the key code was invalid. So I bought windows 7 I just want to start over? It won't let me do a factory reset. The screen is just black.

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You don't want to do a factory reset, you want to boot the laptop from the Windows 7 DVD ... then follow the onscreen instructions.

[SpywareDr]

You don't want to do a factory reset, you want to boot the laptop from the Windows 7 DVD ... then follow the onscreen instructions.

[Cj83]

When I do that it does not do that. It just loads Vista I'm so confused.

[SpywareDr]

In the laptop's CMOS/BIOS Setup, you need to set it to try and boot from the CD/DVD drive before trying the hard drive.

[Cj83]

I'm so sorry I don't know what that means. When I first turn on the laptop I hit f12 witch let's me boost from CD/DVD drive but it won't boost.

[SpywareDr]

Oh cool, (the fact you can press F12 to try and get it to boot from a CD/DVD disc). If that's not working however, you either have a bad disc or dirty/flaky/failed CD/DVD drive. One way to test to see if it's the disc, is to see if another computer can boot from it. (Don't install anything of course. Simply see if it will boot from it, and then turn the computer back off). If it also fails to boot from the disc, you probably have a bad Windows 7 DVD disc. If it does work though, that means there is a problem with the laptop's CD/DVD drive that needs to be fixed.

 

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Note that I'm headed out with the wife and some friends for lunch and don't when I might be back.

Edited by SpywareDr, 09 June 2018 - 09:21 AM.

[Cj83]

Before all of this invalid key code stuff the CD/DVD drive worked perfectly.

[SpywareDr]

Do any other bootable DVDs work in the drive?

 

Using your new Windows 7 Product Key (key code), you could download the Windows 7 ISO file from Microsoft, then use their utility program to burn that ISO file to a bootable USB flash drive. Instructions are on this Microsoft page: https://www.microsof...nload/windows7?