As some of you know, I play EQ on a laptop. I’ve not bothered with a desktop simply because I can’t afford it at the moment although I am trying to save up for one. (This all goes back to when Jisi and I were burglarized if anyone remembers). Anyway, here is my problem.
When I got the HP laptop, it did NOT come restoration discs…you have to make them which I did. Back in September, the screen messed up and I had to send it off to get it repaired. Not more than a week and a half later, I had to send it off again because the onboard video failed (It has a GeForce Go 7400 chipset) which quite honestly, plays EQ very nicely. So now it has a new motherboard and screen and seems to work ok. I noticed though that Cyber test (the warranty company that repaired it) ended up reformatting the hard drive. When I put my restoration discs in it to try and install some of the application software, I got an error message saying the “discs were not usable on this system”. Now I’ve used these discs a while back before any hardware changes were made and they worked flawlessly. I can only deduce that the new hardware is incompatible with the drivers on the restoration discs.
Is there anyway I can make an image or tatoo the new hardware onto a new set of discs which would contain the drivers (ie new chipset versions, motherboard resources etc..) as well as the MS Vista OS? I apologize for my absence and I am longing to return to the game. I’ve logged on a few times on Jisi’s desktop but she needs her system for work and stuff, but as you can see, I am in a bit of a quandary.
Thanks,
Daarsa
Help please
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Daarsa
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If you can get an oem vista home premium disc (or whatever version you have) you should be able to just do a clean install using the license key you already have. You should have a sticker on the bottom of your laptop that has your windows key.
You can find torrents for oem vista discs. You're won't be pirating it since you already own a license to use it on your laptop.
You can find torrents for oem vista discs. You're won't be pirating it since you already own a license to use it on your laptop.
Those dics are usually tied to a motherboard S/N or certain hardware profile. Depending on what the third party company repair did, those burned discs can be broken in that fashion.
Usually there are two routes.
Roll your own: Basically what Isuldor said. Problem there is you won't get anything but your operating system. Any included software is gone.
Contact Manufacturer: I know Dell has a service to get restoration discs for your unit including the Dell bundled software. I'm sure HP has something similar.
My recommendation:
Usually the bundled software is crap. Download an OEM copy of whatever the sticker on the bottom of your laptop says version of Windows. It probably says something like "Vista Home Premium" or "Windows XP Home" or some such and has a 25 digit key on it. Use the OEM copy to install windows fresh with your key. Download the drivers from the manufacturer website or wherever else online, and get your own software.
CD Burning: Imgburn
Office Application: Open Office
IM: Pidgin
Games: EQ (can send you the patcher if you lost it and it can be downloaded entirely from patch servers)
All of the above applications are free and available for download from the Internet. There's not too much else you need, really. If there is post it up and someone probably has a freeware / open source solution that's not bad.
Edit: I totally missed answering your actual question.
You are looking for what's called Imaging software. I highly recommend Acronis True IMAGE. Many others recommend Norton Ghost. Both of these will make an image of your computer, and both of them have other periodic backup functions as well. With Acronis, if you needed to restore your discs, you would pop in the acronis disc, boot from it, and restore the image that you burned off to DVD.
My recommendation is to usually do what I described above. Usually if something gets hosed, I like starting fresh. Some folks would prefer to just drop an image than update what's missing from the image. It's really no difference either way, though the image is usually faster. Either way, you need to back up your personal data on a regular basis for safekeeping.
Usually there are two routes.
Roll your own: Basically what Isuldor said. Problem there is you won't get anything but your operating system. Any included software is gone.
Contact Manufacturer: I know Dell has a service to get restoration discs for your unit including the Dell bundled software. I'm sure HP has something similar.
My recommendation:
Usually the bundled software is crap. Download an OEM copy of whatever the sticker on the bottom of your laptop says version of Windows. It probably says something like "Vista Home Premium" or "Windows XP Home" or some such and has a 25 digit key on it. Use the OEM copy to install windows fresh with your key. Download the drivers from the manufacturer website or wherever else online, and get your own software.
CD Burning: Imgburn
Office Application: Open Office
IM: Pidgin
Games: EQ (can send you the patcher if you lost it and it can be downloaded entirely from patch servers)
All of the above applications are free and available for download from the Internet. There's not too much else you need, really. If there is post it up and someone probably has a freeware / open source solution that's not bad.
Edit: I totally missed answering your actual question.
You are looking for what's called Imaging software. I highly recommend Acronis True IMAGE. Many others recommend Norton Ghost. Both of these will make an image of your computer, and both of them have other periodic backup functions as well. With Acronis, if you needed to restore your discs, you would pop in the acronis disc, boot from it, and restore the image that you burned off to DVD.
My recommendation is to usually do what I described above. Usually if something gets hosed, I like starting fresh. Some folks would prefer to just drop an image than update what's missing from the image. It's really no difference either way, though the image is usually faster. Either way, you need to back up your personal data on a regular basis for safekeeping.
You can also add device drivers to a windows installation disc image www.nliteos.com/