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Thread: No Windows cd with my Dell

  1. #1
    Senior Member Blunted One's Avatar
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    Question No Windows cd with my Dell

    Good day to one and all...

    I have a question and was wondering if any of you had a good way around it.

    On some Dell machines they seem to not send out a windows cd and say that if you need to reinstall or fix anything the windows cd is installed entirely on your HD. Now that just seems like a stupid idea since if something really bad happens and your system crashes how do you get it back up and running w/o the Windows cd?

    Is there any way to burn the copy of windows that Dell says is on the HD onto a cd? Is there anyway to extract that data for emergency use? Or perhaps someone knows a way around this issue.
    It's not a war on drugs it's a war against personal freedoms!

  2. #2
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    I'm making this completely on an assumption, but I'm guessing that it is on a seperate partition not accessible by Windows itself? Once again, a complete assumption I am throwing out there...

  3. #3
    Greeting's

    This is the first time I have heard of such stupid step. Did they give any details like where is this "CD". I'm sure it has to be an ISO file.

    Can you give us some detail as to where is this file/folder that they told you.. Is it possible to ask them the same question ? and finally Which is your Dell model ?
    Parth Maniar,
    CISSP, CISM, CISA, SSCP

    *Thank you GOD*

    Greater the Difficulty, SWEETER the Victory.

    Believe in yourself.

  4. #4
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hi,

    You are quite correct, things are getting worse............I mean it was bad enough just to be given a "recovery disk"......... now they are cutting costs by not even doing that

    You have to make the recovery disk yourself, here are Dell's instructions for so doing:

    http://support.dell.com/support/topi...dhs&dn=1091713



    EDIT: Obviously if your hard drive bellies up, a recovery partition is about as useful as **** on a boar. I am not sure how comprehensive this "Operating System CD" is, by the way........I do recall having problems in the past with these recovery CDs and installing a replacement HDD of a different make/specification.

    However, as MS have now defined a "new computer" as a new MoBo, this should not be an issue.

  5. #5
    Senior Member Blunted One's Avatar
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    I’m sure I deleted that program the second I got my PC. Shiiit. Thanks for the link though.

    There is no ISO, the c:\i386 folder should have everything that you need… but you can’t just burn that, it won’t be bootable that way.

    Damn you Dell...damn you!

    Any other ideas guys?
    It's not a war on drugs it's a war against personal freedoms!

  6. #6
    Greeting's


    Not the smartest idea of all but "CALL THEM".. If you have what did they say ?
    Parth Maniar,
    CISSP, CISM, CISA, SSCP

    *Thank you GOD*

    Greater the Difficulty, SWEETER the Victory.

    Believe in yourself.

  7. #7
    Regal Making Handler
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    Sad fact of life i'm afraid, very few if any PC makers give you a copy of the OS. Dell used to.

    Piracy is often quoted as the reason, My own view is they are looking for support revenue.

    The couple of Dell Pc's I have come across recently, have come with either an automated on_line recovery utility or Norton Ghost. Both about as much use as. "**** on a fish" as far as I am concerned.
    What happens if a big asteroid hits the Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad. - Dave Barry

  8. #8
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hmmm,

    It seems that Dell no longer ship this utility:

    NOTE: The Dell OS Recovery Utility is available on Dimension computers that were shipped between December 15, 2004 and July 15, 2005 and on Inspiron computers between January 10, 2005 and July 15, 2005. The utility is available on the same systems shipped in Europe between the dates of April 11, 2005 and February 20, 2006
    That was when they started charging $10 for a copy of the CD which was an option when you ordered the machine.

    You will have to contact Dell Technical Support and get them to send you one.


  9. #9
    IT Specialist Ghost_25inf's Avatar
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    You can call and pay them 40 bucks for a copy of the OS. 9 times out of 10 people fail make copies. When the system boots it asks you if you want to make copies but people are too excited to get in and start screwing around with there computers they tell it no. When the computer crashes or worse the hard drive fails and then there stuck without the OS. There are some OEM disks out there that work with the Dell keys and you can install it from there. Just DL the drivers from there web site and you should be good to go. If its XP Pro and you pay for the shipping I could send you a legal disk for dell machines. Our company just ordered a crap load of dells and we put our own image on them and toss out the OEM disks.
    S25vd2xlZGdlIGlzIHBvd2VyIQ

  10. #10
    Senior Member Spyrus's Avatar
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    As stated most all your retail manufacturers don't supply a cd anymore. Instead what they do is supply a partition on your hard drive that is a bootable restorable partition. Its a terrible idea since in the instance of a bad hard drive you no longer have your OS/drivers anything anymore. I think if you contact Dell and pay the 10 dollars Nihil was referring to they will mail you an OS cd.

    Or you could buy another hard drive and make a mirror image of it and then you would have a copy of everything and a backup.
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