I replaced Windows with Linux, can I recover it with just the product key?
My laptop (the digit I’m on) came installed with Windows XP, I proven to establish Vista though the feat round of added grouping but Microsoft institute discover and my machine was a brick. I installed UNIX (Ubuntu to be exact) meet so I crapper ingest it, but I poverty windows back. My laptop didn’t become with feat disks, but the creation key for windows is on it. My uncle said that’s every I requirement and that I could establish it online, but I can’t encounter where crapper someone verify me or provide me a link?
that was not smart. you need a xp install disc or contact the manufacturer of ur laptop and have then send you a restore disc.
Well, as long as you have a legal product key, you can try download Windows XP from a torrent, but you must realize that this is illegal so it must be an original copy, not unattended/cracked.
so far you are not getting the best answers, sorry. first, you need to know how your laptop was shipped with XP on it. In most cases, there was the windows os and then the company loaded specific drivers for the hardware they used. So if you get your hands on a XP install disk (and any one will work, they are all the same except for … back to that in a minute) and you have you MS product key code. you will get xp back on the system, but your wireless, modem, ethernet, display, etc may not work right. to take care of drivers, plus any programs that were preloaded, you should have received a second disk that had the drivers on it for your model and then some software app disks for things like roxio virus protection ect. If you had purchased MS office, but do not have that disk, you are really hosed, because the product id was on the disk envelope, and the pc companies treat that as a royalty sale, they do not and can not give away free copies, or free product id’s. So to finish up this issue, you probably received 3 or more disks to do this. (dell)
Another choice is that the company that you bought the computer thru would have sent you a total install disk, this disk would have had apps, drivers and xp on the same cd. This blows out the entire disk and reloads from scratch. (hp)
The third option is that you pc had a non usable partition on it, that had a reload copy of your system. Usally hitting F11 or some such key, would dump the origianal files back out to disk, wiping everything out, but you would be back to day 1 in terms of software.When you loaded Ubuntu you may or may not have wiped out this partition. usally about 3 gb big.. sometimes the manufacturer will tell you to make a backup copy just in case. once the partition is deleted or corrupted you still dead in the water.
Now the dirty little secret. depending on the age of you machine. you may have been shipped XP with SP1. Your product key was specifically created for this install. getting a xp sp2 install disk may fail, the product key will not be any good. find the sp1 version, load, then upgrade to sp2 or sp3.
so if you are stll under warranty, go to your machine maker and see what disks you should have and what resources on the web site, like for drivers you can gain access to.