Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

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AlphA
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Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by AlphA »

Hi,

I recently bought a Packard Bell notebook with a Win7 Home Premium licence. I told the salesman I want to use Linux on the laptop and he said it would not invalidate my warranty. He also told me that the recovery cd's are in the box. So, I formatted the disk and installed Mint....which has been running without issue.

I now want to give the laptop to my wife and am trying to recover it to Windows 7. A friend of mine has the exact same laptop and gave me his recovery DVD's. The recovery goes fine.....and completes without issue, but, when I try to boot into windows, it just reboots without even trying to load Windows and goes into an infinite loop. I suspect its looking for a hidden partition, which I dont have as Linux trashed it.

Do you guys have any advice on how I can (legally!) get Windows 7 back on this laptop?

Thanks
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SykomantiS
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by SykomantiS »

stupid question first- have you tried booting in safe mode? Or doesn't it even get that far?
No option in the recovery software to redo the partitions?
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by hamin_aus »

AlphA wrote:I suspect its looking for a hidden partition, which I dont have as Linux trashed it.
Boom! Headshot.

You may have to contact Packard Bell directly and ask them to send you an OEM Windows 7 CD. HP and Dell do this on request, not sure about PB. If they do they may ask you to pay for postage, that's standard practise.
Don't tell them you installed Linux tho, just tell them the HDD got corrupted, you had to format and now cant use the recovery DVD's.
Those things are useless and are not for reinstalling the OS from scratch - the person who sold you the laptop is an idiot.

If PB cant/wont help you, which would be very bad form for them, either buy an OEM copy of Win7 yourself, or go back to where you bought it and raise some hell.
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AlphA
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by AlphA »

Hey Jamin - howzit going? ;-)

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Yes, the person who sold me the laptop (salesman at Incredible Deception) told me the recovery cd's are in the box. My ignorance had a part to play with it (first brand new laptop I've bought) and I wasn't aware of the "tatoo" or hidden partition being required for the recovery. What is p!ssing me off is that I told him I would trash the disk to run Linux....and he said that was cool - the recovery disks would restore it to the factory default.

I suspect PB SA is going to charge me for an OEM disk - nevertheless, I will try my luck. If that fails, I will go back to the store and kick up a stink. They need to properly train their staff to properly inform customers.

Ironically, I called the store yesterday and the dude who sold me the laptop is currently away on training - go figure!

Thanks again for the advice - appreciated. For now, the laptop in question is happilly running Mint12.

EDIT : To answer your first question.....No...no option to redo the partitions. Once the recovery is complete it just POSTS, reboots, POSTS, reboots etc etc. Why on earth dont they just supply customers with OEM disks like they used to back in the day?
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by hamin_aus »

Hope you get it sorted bud!

As long as we are discussing Linux you will be glad to hear I've spent the last year doing lots of work on Linux.
My soon-to-be old job entailed doing app support for lots of stuff that ran on Linux, as well as a lot of MySQL stuff.
Been spending heaps of time on Redhat 5.6 and Ubuntu (Lucid & Hardy) :D
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AlphA
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by AlphA »

Thanks man - I'll keep you posted as to how things pan out.

What? I'm shocked! Microsoft's biggest fan working with Linux professionally? Amazing! How times have changed. I think I've been away from the forums for too long.

(belated) Welcome to the *nix world - we have been expecting you ;-) ...and good luck with the new job you will be starting soon.
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by Hman »

You could borrow a windoze cd from someone, install an use the license key on the sticker.
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hamin_aus
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by hamin_aus »

Hman wrote:You could borrow a windoze cd from someone, install an use the license key on the sticker.
Worth a shot as a last resort.

@AlphA - yeah Linux does some things much better than Windows... commands like tail, grep, cat - even sed and awk, once you wrap your heap around them :shock:
IPTables, mounting disks as folders instead of individual drives - I could go on, but rustypup might have an orgasm.

Still prefer Windows, but now see a method to the Linux madness :P
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by KALSTER »

Hman wrote:You could borrow a windoze cd from someone, install an use the license key on the sticker.
+1

Otherwise, you might do a MBR fix.
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by hamin_aus »

KALSTER wrote:
Hman wrote:You could borrow a windoze cd from someone, install an use the license key on the sticker.
+1
Be careful with that, if you get an SLP disk from another vendor you wont be able to activate Windows with your vendor key.
If you get a retail version of Windows that requires activation and you vendor registers Windows via OEMBIOS checks and not manual activation you are equally stuffed...

KALSTER wrote:Otherwise, you might do a MBR fix.
Elaborate
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KALSTER
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by KALSTER »

Master boot record?
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by hamin_aus »

No, elaborate on how doing am MRB fix will solve the issue
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by SykomantiS »

Ya, the way I have it Kalster, the partitions to be fixed by an MBR fix should at least still exist on the drive. I have a strong feeling when Linux binned it, it did so by completely removing all partitions existing on the drive. So in essence, there will be no partitions for the MBR to reference once it's 'fixed'
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by KALSTER »

And the Recovery Disc doesn't check these partitions? Where did it copy the files to? Not arguing, just asking.
Last edited by KALSTER on 16 Feb 2012, 12:01, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by Hman »

What the recovery disc is is essentially a collection of files, settings, applications and drivers specific to the machine as it was configured by the manufacturer. What it is not is a complete windows installation disc. The laptop manufacturers normally create a hidden partition on the drive with a image of a windows install disc. When you then use the recovery disc it uses the hidden partition to install windows, after which it copies it's own contents over and configures the system as if it came from the factory.

If there's no install image or at least a fresh install of windows it can't do squat.
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by KALSTER »

Ah. Good to know, thanks. ;) My mistake.
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Re: Need help recovering Win7 on laptop

Post by AlphA »

hman is perfectly correct.

One thing I have learned (re-learned?) is that the staff at IC know absolutely jack about how things work. I had to explain the problem to them and they still didnt understand the concept of tattoo-ing or fingerprint matching between motherboard and HDD. *sigh* Its really a shame that these guys are selling hardware to average consumers who rely on them for information. I give up.....really.

jamin - Yes ....Linux has its uses. Mostly, its a lot more exciting with a bunch of different shells and customizing the OS as one sees fit. Also, there is lots of power to be unleashed once one understands the hundreds of commands and how usefull they can be when used in tandem with each other.

I am off to a new job in a few days as well. Will have some RHEL servers, Solaris and AIX servers in my department (nice!)
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