Create Vista Install CD?

I bought an hp dv2000z with vista premium on it with 120gb of Memory.

Vista takes up 13gb but the vista partitioner only lets me resize to 50gb. Is there any way to resize this partition to only 20gb? Why does Vista need 50gb worth of room?

My primary OS is ubuntu and I will also install XP because I don't like vista at all. However, I woudl like to be able to install Vista again in the future without paying for it because I have already paid for the version that came with my notebook.

Is there a way to create a Vista Install cd from an image on the Harddrive so that I can install vista again at a later date using the product key that came with my notebook?

Thank you in advance.

 

Are you saying it didn't come with recovery cd's?

If they did not provide recovery CD's then you should have a hidden partition to restore your computer with Vista. HP may have a utility to create a recovery DVD/CD within windows.

Failing all of the above you can create a image of the partition using programs such as powerquest drive image, norton ghost etc. You can restore the image at any time. I used norton ghost in the past a lot mainly for recovery in case the OS went bad. Windows 98 was special for that and to some extent the first release of XP without SP.

 

WOW!
My Dell E1705 only has 2GB of memory.
How big of a hard drive is in your HP?

 

Sorry i meant the HD was 120gb and only 1gb of RAM.

ez2Remember: I have used that extra recoveyr partition to recover before. I also made the recovery dvd's but i got the message " PC does not support those recovery discs" and I am only allowed to make once so I was screwed.

I am interested in this Norton Ghost and powerquest. Essentially, I could make a copy of the image and then totally wipe everything from my harddrive and install ubuntu. If i wanted to install Vista again I would just boot from those image cds?

 

Update: Sadly I have checked symantec website and Ghost isn't compatible with Vista. Some members may know of other backup/ghosting program which is compatible with Vista.

Symantec may update their software to become Vista compatible but at the moment only a few are.

Here I found one that works with Vista Acronis True Image.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Yes you can backup the image to CD/DVD and recover from it.

 

Does the dv2000 recovery disk creation procedure actually require more than one DVD?

Since the files are compressed I thought it wouold onlt take one dvd at most.

 

2 DVD's

or

21 CD's

 

20 GB is a bit tight for Vista. If you have system restore enabled you will eventually run out of space. 50 might be on the high side.

 

It requires two DVDs because of how much bloatware comes with it...yes, the bloat does get in on the DVDs.

 

Click the link in my signature to create a vista DVD from the files in your hard drive.

 

You have quite a few options for what you want to do.

To save a whole image of the Vista drive, take a look at the free DriveImageXML.

If you want to make another set of recovery discs, show all the hidden files and delete the 2 files C:\hpcd.sys and D:\hpcd.sys. Those files are only used to keep track that you made a recovery disc.

If you want to resize the partition you cannot make it less than half, because the MFT is in the middle and cannot be moved.

If you want to save your activation for later, use the ABR tool in my Clean Install guide (see sig) to save the product key/activation (I recommed you read that guide anyway). Then you only need a Vista install disc to reinstall Vista and not the recovery discs with all the bloat (and they also delete everything on your hard drive). You can also see my guide for info on how to get Vista discs that are not filled with bloat.

 

bitTorrent gives you the full 3.66 GB integrated Vista 64 + SP1 that is currently available only to those who buy a new retail copy or download it from the MS Developer Network or MS Technet and OEMs. It took me 8 hours 54 minutes to download it at an average of 135KB/sec.

You can find the link to the torrent (ISO file) at
www.mydigitallife.info/2008/03/15/6...64-edition-msdn-dvd-iso-download-via-torrent/

Here is an explanation of bitTorrent for those who are unfamiliar with it,
http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/3.html . It is not for pirating software, although the entire Internet is a corridor for that. It serves a very valid purpose; for instance permitting us laymen to get a clean integrated copy of Vista 64 with SP1 when the giants like HP and MS just want to force us to eat bloatware.