Re: Cant reinstall vista from my recovery disk
- From: Malke <malke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:59:53 -0800
SImonFoot wrote:
hello, can anyone help in my hour of despair.Here is the problem and
some facts. I have a Packard Bell imedia 2423.It has nVidia GeForce
8400GS,Amarillo 2 motherboard,AMD Phenom 9500, DVD dual layer drive
and a Seagate Barracuda 7200 250GB hardk disk.It came pre-installed
with Windows vista home premium.
I had problems with corrupt files and not knowing much about computers
i got my friend to have a look at it. I wish i hadn't.He took the last
resort and without my consent reformatted it and installed an illegal
copy of Windows vista ultimate on it(at the time i didn't have a
recovery disk).I ended up with a computer stuck in reduced functionality
mode and in despair. I bought a DVD master disk from Packard Bell and
hoped i could fix my PC and return to my legal copy of Windows Vista
home premium.
My hard drive seems to have two partitions.Things have not gone
smoothly though. I chose the recovery option from the master disk.
It seemed to go ok until it told me to take the second disk out and the
computer restarted. It then went to "start of the INITIALISE
phase of the process" window.It seemed to be installing but then froze
on 14% of installation and the HDD light stopped blinking.
I aborted and it took me to Windows Boot Manager screen and left the
following message:
File: \Boot\BCD
Status:0xc000000f
Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration
I tried the "windows and smart restore" option on the master disk.When
the computer restarted i changed the boot priority to boot from
HDD first.It froze again on 14% of installation and i pressed ESC and
was left with a window saying
"The unattend answer file contains an invalid product key.Windows
installation cannot proceed without a valid product key".
Im not sure what i can do to rectify it and would appreciate any
expertise or advice from anyone.Do i need to reformat the hard drive in
command prompt and then use the master recovery disk?
thanks
My guess is that you aren't doing a full clean install. Many OEM recovery
processes give you a choice of a full (sometimes called "destructive")
recovery or one that keeps the existing installation and just "repairs" it.
Boot with Disk 1 of your recovery disk set and make sure you are doing a
true restore to factory condition. If that fails, your hard drive is
probably bad - although other components may also be faulty.
If you can't do the work yourself - and there is no shame in admitting this
isn't your cup of tea - take the machine to a professional computer repair
shop (not your local equivalent of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad). If
possible, have all your data backed up before you take the machine into a
shop.
Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ
.
- References:
- Cant reinstall vista from my recovery disk
- From: SImonFoot
- Cant reinstall vista from my recovery disk
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