crashed Toshiba laptop w/Vista, how to re-install?

Hi there,

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop here and it had been dropped on the floor and the hard drive is toast.

I put another hard drive in it and I went and tried to use a Vista Ultimate DVD to install, it failed the keycode that's on the laptop. Then I tried Vista Home Premium, which is the one in the laptop....that also failed the keycode.

When they came out with Vista, I was under the impression that all Vista DVDs were the same and the editions would depend on the keycode.

The person who owns this laptop did not make a recovery DVD.

How to go about installing Vista on this laptop using the laptops key code?

Thanks,

Gordon

The person that owns the laptop needs to contact the manufacturer about
obtaining recovery media. The Product Key provided will likely only work
with OEM media, not retail disks.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Gordon J. Rattray" <> wrote in message
news:e%...
Hi there,

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop here and it had been dropped on the floor
and the hard drive is toast.

I put another hard drive in it and I went and tried to use a Vista Ultimate
DVD to install, it failed the keycode that's on the laptop. Then I tried
Vista Home Premium, which is the one in the laptop....that also failed the
keycode.

When they came out with Vista, I was under the impression that all Vista
DVDs were the same and the editions would depend on the keycode.

The person who owns this laptop did not make a recovery DVD.

How to go about installing Vista on this laptop using the laptops key code?

Thanks,

Gordon

How big was the original hard drive? If you installed a bigger size hard drive.. Vista might complain about the hardware change and you will have to contact Microsoft and get a different product key to activate it. I would think that installing a new HDD and nothing else wouldn't be a major hardware change tho.

Did you use the Vista installation DVD that came with the Toshiba laptop? Might want to give Toshiba Support a holler and see if you can get a recovery DVD for your particular laptop. normally its a OEM install on laptops.
I
And you are right about the different flavors of Vista on the installation dvd.... For example: I recently upgraded my laptop from XP to Vista Home Premium. (OEM DVD).
During the 30 day period I could check out the other Vista choices if I wanted to. But my product key was only valid for Home Premium.
"Gordon J. Rattray" <> wrote in message news:e%...
Hi there,

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop here and it had been dropped on the floor and the hard drive is toast.

I put another hard drive in it and I went and tried to use a Vista Ultimate DVD to install, it failed the keycode that's on the laptop. Then I tried Vista Home Premium, which is the one in the laptop....that also failed the keycode.

When they came out with Vista, I was under the impression that all Vista DVDs were the same and the editions would depend on the keycode.

The person who owns this laptop did not make a recovery DVD.

How to go about installing Vista on this laptop using the laptops key code?

Thanks,

Gordon

"Gordon J. Rattray" wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop here and it had been dropped on the floor and the hard drive is toast.
>
> I put another hard drive in it and I went and tried to use a Vista Ultimate DVD to install, it failed the keycode that's on the laptop. Then I tried Vista Home Premium, which is the one in the laptop....that also failed the keycode.
>
> When they came out with Vista, I was under the impression that all Vista DVDs were the same and the editions would depend on the keycode.
>
> The person who owns this laptop did not make a recovery DVD.
>
> How to go about installing Vista on this laptop using the laptops key code?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gordon

Hello Gordon,
Get a hold of Toshiba Support. They should be able to sell you the "RESTORE"
disks for the laptop..

On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:09:43 -0800, "Gordon J. Rattray"
<> wrote:

>I was just mulling the possibilities and another guy I know has the exact same laptop.
>
>So, I could clone that disk over to the new hard disk for the laptop I'm trying to get going and make a recovery disk.
>
>Or would a recover disk from that second identical laptop work?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Gordon

FYI - Toshiba recovery CD's/DVD's are a fully automated install.
There's no entering the product key or much of anything else.

If I were you, I would try to get one from Toshiba or if the friend
has the EXACT same model and sub model (part #) that might work. If
you go the "clone" route, it might work, but you need to use something
that will build a bootable disk like Acronis True Image.