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    installing vista from external hard drive?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by alkaeda, May 28, 2009.

  1. alkaeda

    alkaeda Notebook Evangelist

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    Long story short = computer owned by virus, needs fresh clean install. I don't have vista disks but have an image of the vista installation saved on an external hard drive. I also burned the image to DVD but my DVD player/reader is highly unreliable and often fails to read disks. My only option is the external HD.

    Can you install vista from an external hard drive? If so how? I have backed up all my files on the HD. The virus made my system unstable so its unable to shutdown or install/uninstall most applications. I have a recovery partition but it fails to trigger (Ctrl+F11 doesn't work). So this is my only option I think.. anyone help?
     
    alkaeda, May 28, 2009
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  2. Silas Awaketh

    Silas Awaketh Notebook Deity

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    Silas Awaketh, May 28, 2009
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  3. DetlevCM

    DetlevCM Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    First:
    What exactly have you got on your HDD? A copy of your recovery discs, a backup of the Vista disk, a backup of the whole OS using the windows tool??

    Each version will merit its own approach.

    Next: ctrl+F11 may work for one notebook and not another - are you sure its the right Fn key/key combination for the recovery?
     
    DetlevCM, May 28, 2009
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  4. Silas Awaketh

    Silas Awaketh Notebook Deity

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    DetlevCM what did you not understand in the first post? :confused:

    1) He clearly says he has an image of Windows Vista installation disc with him on his external HDD.
    2) Do you think he doesn't know the key combination of his own notebook?
     
    Silas Awaketh, May 28, 2009
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  5. alkaeda

    alkaeda Notebook Evangelist

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    Lol Silas ^^ :p

    Thanks for the advice, on the HDD I've got a vista image file (single ISO file with all versions 3gb) and also a Vista recovery image file (ISO image 123mb). Yes I'm sure its Ctrl+F11 for my vostro, and I couldn't find a manual way to trigger the recovery partition so I have to reinstall everything
     
    alkaeda, May 28, 2009
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  6. Silas Awaketh

    Silas Awaketh Notebook Deity

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    Make an account there, and ask them for a good tutorial.
     
    Silas Awaketh, May 28, 2009
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  7. alkaeda

    alkaeda Notebook Evangelist

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    I have done and just about to make a thread now xD, meanwhile if anyone else has any other ideas...
     
    alkaeda, May 28, 2009
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