Interchangeable system disks?

I have an Inspiron with Vista Home Premium that won't boot and the "restore to shipped conditions" options doesn't work. I need to reinstall the OS but have lost the disk - HOWEVER I do have the disk off a Vostro that I own which is labeled Vista Home Basic.

My question is whether I can use the Vostro's disk to reinstall on the Inspiron (whose product key I have), and if so would I end up with Basic or Premium?

Thanks,
paulus.

 

If you had a disk from another system with Home Premium, then it would work just fine. Unfortunately, however, the Home Basic disk won't work. Your license key is only valid for Home Premium. Technically you could install Home Basic from that disk, but you won't be able to activate it.

Call up Dell and ask them to send you a replacement Vista Home Premium disk, they shouldn't give you too much crap about it, especially if you've never asked for disk replacements before.

 

If the Home Basic disk is from Dell then activation is not required since you are installing it on a Dell computer. I have done numerous installs across my Dell computers at home and I have never had to activate a single one. Keep in mind that Home Basic is just that, basic. I would say ask Dell for Home Premium as Mastershroom said unless you are strapped for time or something to that effect.

 

I have spoken to Dell, and I have never asked for a disk before. However they want £68 (GBP) for a replacement disk (~$110) which I think is scandalous. Hence I am trying to use the disks that I have.

paulus

 

That's an absolute load of crap. Call back and talk to somebody else. They've shipped me two Vista installation disks for free. Just say "I need a replacement Vista Home Premium recovery disk", in no uncertain terms. You're not buying a new license of Vista, you're just replacing the disk to install it.

And John, would that still work if he's installing a different OS than his system was originally licensed for?

 

Trust me I spent ages arguing very strongly, but since the laptop is 15 months old (out or warantee) the only offer was £68 (GBP) for a replacement disk, or £90 (GBP) for a warantee extension - then they would supply it free. I even spoke to their legal department, who got even more agressive, saying they now rescind the offer of a free disk should I take out extended warantee!!!

Speaking to Dell here in the UK is a nightmare - their only pre-occupation is trying to sell support services.

paulus

 

Is it unlawful to charge for a disk that is free in the first place?

I took a Windows XP Professional disk from my old Latitude laptop and installed it on my brothers inspiron desktop and my cousins inspiron laptop with out having to activate. I also used my Vista Home premium disk and installed it on my dads XPS desktop with the same results. I am not sure if there are separate "Business Class" OEM disks, but my latitude disk worked just fine across home and office computers. I assume that all Dell OS disks are interchangeable, they must have some sort of coding that searches the computer for a service tag or hardware configuration.

 

You shouldn't have to do that...Microsoft themselves will ship you a replacement disk for $10, all you have to do is verify your license code. If Microsoft gives you any crap about it, then send me an email at mastershroom[at]gmail[dot]com. I'll personally mail you one of my spare Dell OEM Vista Home Premium 32-bit disks.

It may be lawful, but counterproductive; Microsoft will ship anyone a disk for $10, warranty or not.

I know the disks will work across different computer models, but I didn't know you can use a Home Basic disk on a system that shipped with Home Premium.

 

Microsoft closed for the evening, but I have managed to boot this machine, altho' boot is VERY unreliable. What I have discovered is that there appears to be at least two versions of the OS (presumably from when it was in with the cowboys). Disk Cleanup will gladly free up more than 11GB by deleting one, but maybe its the old one I want?!

The disk has a recovery partition (presumably with DELL's shipped copy installed) but I cannot access it via the F8 on start-up route. The additional folders on the c: drive are:
$UPGRADE.~OS
$WINDOWS.~BT
WINDOWS.OLD

My guess is that the first two are temporary files to do with installing an OS, and the last one is the original system. If I was merely to rename the current WINDOWS and revert WINDOWS.OLD to WINDOWS and rebooted would I get back to the original system? Is this the route I should follow?

(I do appreciate that you guys know far more about this than me)

paulus

 

Looks like they tried to upgrade your windows installation or something?

In any case, as far as I know you can restore windows.old; but you need to be able to boot into the computer without going into Vista at all.

If you look at the following, you'll see Microsoft achieves this via the Vista repair environment:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933168

Not sure if you have access to anything that will give you command line access without actually booting into Vista to give it a try?

 

Yeah, I am glad Microsoft allows us to do that. Dell is the problem, they are trying to charge him an insane amount for an OS disk that they don't originally charge for. That's what I meant by unlawful. I also got mine for free and I would have raised hell if they tried to charge me for it.

I am sure that you can. You couldn't downgrade per say. In order to install Home Basic you would have perform a clean install unless, by some chance, you have the downgrade rights. Is that what you meant?

 

Dell do charge you for it, it'll be included in the calculations when the price up your system. It might be shown as free, but they'll account for it.

I suspect Dell are charging the price of a new OEM OS licence rather than simply just the media. They have absolutely no obligation to supply media to you without charge, heck they have absolutely no obligation to supply it to you at all.

As it has been said though, you can get it from Microsoft for next to nothing. Probably the sales rep at Dell didn't understand what you were asking. It wouldn't be the first time that has happened........

 

No, what I was alluding to was the assumption some have that all Vista disks are identical and that it is the product key that determines which version is to be installed (a view held by some).

I used the Vista Basic disk to boot, that way I got to a command prompt, then I followed the Microsoft note to revert to the original OS. Stiull not booting, but the Vista Basic CD is working on repairs - will let you know.

paulus

 

That's right. The label is just a label. It is not hardwired into the computer that you can't install a different version. With dell disks you don't need the product key anyways.

 

I think he is talking about the DVD, not the laptop; ie the DVD that Vista setup is on, does it have all versions of Vista on or just the one printed on the DVD label.

The answer, well I've vlited the disk that Dell sent me and it only gave me the option of Home Premium, but I vlited my previous laptop and it gave me several (though none above Home Premium).

I suppose it simply depends on the distributor. Not sure about a retail version though.

 

Oh! Haha. I get it now. Sorry I am a bit slow. I see....that would be an interesting discovery if it turned out true.

 

just put the home basic DVD in format !! the se if the recovery partition is functional again!!
if notjust look for dell oem vista home premium on TPB
you still got the key from your laptop and is dells OEM disk so no problem!!!

is just a bypass for somthing so absurd as paying 110 for a disk and thats plus shipping

 

Just to complete the thread I'M RECOVERED!!

I managed to download a bootable disk, which restored my initial image file and gave me an "as shipped" system. So a re-first-time-installation and 50+ windows updates later I have a very workable system again.

Thanks for all who gave me help in getting there.

paulus

 

Cool. Now backup everything to an image using something like Acronis - that way you can recover at least to the state your drive is in at the moment.