Re: Hard Drive Died (May it Rest in Peace)
- From: "Patrick Keenan" <test@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:06:36 -0400
"xtremely poor w/ xtremely bad luck" <xtremely poor w/ xtremely bad
luck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:AEF07DA7-247A-4E31-B556-67198896E964@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My hard drive died (conveniently on the first day of summer school). My
version of Windows XP SP2 came on my laptop. It's barely 2 years old. I
have
my product key, but I do not have a boot cd because, of course, none came
with my laptop.
I'm a poor college student; if it weren't for McDonald's Dollar Menu, I'd
also be a starving. How can I install Windows XP again... (cost
effectively)?
First, check the warranty.
Second, if there was no boot CD, then the means for restoring XP was on the
hard disk, perhaps in a separate partition. Check the manuals and
manufacturer's support for details. If that's the case, the drive has to
be working to gain access to it. If the drive is actually dead, this
*cannot* work - it is the fundamental flaw in a scheme which saves the
vendor less than a dollar in immediate costs. Instead, it assigns a charge
hundreds of times larger to YOU in case of failure.
Third, there is a service called restoredisks.com that may be able to
provide reinstall media.
Fourth, get a replacement hard disk, and an educational-discount or OEM
version of XP. The pair should cost under $200.
Fifth, if you don't actually need to run specific Windows programs, but just
need things like word processing, spreadsheets, etc., consider Linux. The
Ubuntu distribution is very good, and pretty easy to use, but all Linux
distributions seem to need you to learn a bit. For example, you can share
folders with XP systems, but it involves installing SAMBA, configuring it,
and adding users.
www.ubuntu.org
Sixth... well, this is why it's not a good idea to buy systems that use
recovery partitions, or not make create Restore CDs when you can. Be sure
you complain in writing (not email) to the highest-up of the the higher-ups
in the laptop maker if you can't get restore media.
HTH
-pk
.
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