I am completely lost on this thread. The tech support person mentioned an OEM installation so does that mean that the Windows disk I have is useless for a new hard drive?
replacing laptop hardrive
- Thread starter mts
- Start date
I am completely lost on this thread. The tech support person mentioned an OEM installation so does that mean that the Windows disk I have is useless for a new hard drive?
I paid for it to be done by a specialist firm on the north side of Dublin.
The drive was so far gone PC Peripherals in Sandyford couldn't copy it.
I had used the family PC for about a week, but I still needed a final solution.
I was running my entire office from my laptop - extended downtime wasn't an option
Sending the HD to the UK was going to cost me thousands and take well over a week by all accounts.
I looked up firms who did hard drive recovery and chose; -
Critical Data Services
Unit 719
Northwest Business Park
Ballycoolin
Dublin 15
LoCall: 1890 237 100
t: +353 (0)1 861 2280
f: +353 (0)1 507 8217
e: mailto:[email protected]
w: www.criticaldata.ie
I got a much better price from CDS than the UK options.
It took less than a week and they sourced and fitted the new HD.
They also copied the retrieved data onto an external HD.
I would have preferred to pay less, but they did the business.
They were very professional and kept me well-informed at all times.
HTH
ONQ
<nods>
I specified the FAT 32 formatting when ordering for two reasons:
(i) to allow me to run legacy applications I had used on my Windows 95 OSR2 PC, and
(ii) to ensure total deletion of sensitive client data without any alternative data streams in NTFS compromising that solution.
Worked well, the only "ghost" files and folder names that were restored by the bit-by-bit data retrieval were those I hadn't specifically wiped.
In relation to achieving the total capacity, there is a bit of a Catch-22 according to CDS.
There is a tool you can use, but it doesn't seem to be usable from a running hard drive.
It has to operate at very low level on the heads and boot sectors.
[I'm now well beyond my level of expertise, but this is how I understand it]
It seems the only way to do it is run it from another HD running as primary boot.
The original master is run as secondary or slave [the laptop can support two HDs].
That way the OS isn't formatting itself as it works, if I have this right.
No one could say whether or not this was going to result in data loss.
More importantly I had already lost a few weeks of uptime.
I left it and bought the external HD backup.
It uses the Firewire 400 port on the IBM.
It is also compatible with Win2K SP4, USB II and the FAT 32 filesystems.
Its a Western Digital MyBook if anyone's interested.
FWIW
ONQ.
most likely it wont, but again you should first have a look at the partition table of the hard drive to understand if there really is a hidden partition used for bios. if there isnt then you have a chance of it to work.
the way OEM winxp disks work is by using SLP to 'read' the bios of the PC and 'validate' that the specific machine is allowed to run it.
if this is the case tho, SLP is only implemented on the firmware itself and wouldnt work on an older bios partition.
hope this helps
Thats talking about the firmware on the HD controller. Not that its on the HD itself.
Even if what your talking about is possible. I don't think any of this is relevant to a computer built in the last decade. I would bet money that the OP doesn't have to worry about any of that.
All the OEM disks do is, if its a Dell disk check that its a Dell computer. In rare cases it will check that its a Specific Dell model.
You guys are really making something so simple as making a cup of tea sound like its climbing everest. Swap the disk for a new one. Takes 5 mins. Try installing from the OEM disk. Either it works or it doesn't you'll know in another 5/10 mins. If it doesn't work no problem. Simply put the old drive back and no harm done. Its a no brainer. If your near D.4/15 drop me a PM and I'll do it for you over a coffee. I have spare drives you could test with.
I'm still interesting in finding out what your talking about. I just can't find anything about it. So if you find anything please give a link.
Thanks everone for your replies.
I will get a new hard drive and and try and install Windows from the OEM disk and hopefully it will work. If it doesn't,AlbacoreA I will shout you a coffee
Now, another question. I know I need a SATA hard drive but how do I know if it is 2.5 or 3.5?
I will get a new hard drive and and try and install Windows from the OEM disk and hopefully it will work. If it doesn't,AlbacoreA I will shout you a coffee
Now, another question. I know I need a SATA hard drive but how do I know if it is 2.5 or 3.5?