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1785
March 8th, 2010 15:00
Factory Restore and now won't boot
My friend has an Inspiron 1525 running vista32 and it has been passed to me to try and repair it as it is 2 months out of warranty.
The HDD corrupted (C: partition I am cetain) and I have managed to copy the 1st partition (EIDE OEM Partition), the 2nd Partition (RECOVERY) and the 4th Partition (MEDIADIRECT or similar). I have managed by various machines (and another DELL computer) to get into the Factory Restore program. It runs, but then when I start up the machine it completes the BIOS check and it restarts back to the BIOS check.
Any ideas as to why this is.
Failing that, is ther any way I can recover the Windows Vista CD Key as the little certificate that is stuck to the base is so worn as to be unreadable (Stupid place to put it).
I would regard myself as an advanced user and have managed to recover all the data from the HDD if that is going to be of use.
many thanks for reading this and in advance for any suggestions.
goodvibrations
23 Posts
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March 8th, 2010 17:00
I wonder if it has anything to do with the MBR. If you have some time skim THIS page about manually restoring a Dell PC Ghost Image. Another page that might help is HERE.
As to the CD key.....when i recently reinstalled XP from the dell OEM disk, i was never asked for the key. Maybe its not needed (?)
dave51_2fe887
2 Intern
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1.3K Posts
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March 8th, 2010 18:00
This program will retrieve a key from a unbootable drive. But if you use a Dell reinstall DVD, it should install and activate without asking for COA.
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/