Windows on partiton??

[beavereater]

My friend bought a laptop. He has no Windows installation disk and so I'm assuming he has it on his HDD. I can't find it. I don't know how to look for it. I'm assuming you couldn't just use explorer to find it?? Once I do find it, how do I put it on a CD so he can format his PC?

[Shard92]

depends what brand is it? It may only have a hidden recovery partition. Some computers do allow you to burn restore disks and some don't.

[thevoelk]

Pull the hard drive and examine it under disk management in another computer. You'll probably have to use a USB casing unless it's one of the newer SATA laptop drives.

[guns1inger]

Generally, if there is a built-in installaion routine it will engage when you start up the laptop for the first time. If this has not happened then you probably don't have windows (or anything else) on the HDD. Are you sure a windows license was included ?

[redwudz]

I doubt you will be able to put it on a CD. If it's a standard OS install, it should be visible with explorer. I don't think Windows will work off a hidden partition. Hopefully it came with recover discs or a install disc. If not, there's not a lot you can do if you need to replace the OS.

As far as hidden partitions, they are hidden. You can boot with a Win98 bootdisk and that will show you all partitions. XP may not be able to see them. On most laptops, the hidden partition is just diagnostics and not a lot of use for recovering or reinstalling the OS.

EDIT: I think I misread your post. I really doubt they would code an install disc onto the HD. If he doesn't have a separate install/recovery disc, I think he's out of luck. As mentioned, the extra partition is usually for diagnostics and at least on my laptop is 8MB, so no extra room for much of anything.

[beavereater]

The reason I said it may be on another on a hidden partition is because I formatted another friends PC long long ago and he said he had the discs. When handed them to me, it was Office...no recovery or installation disc. Apparently it was on one of the partitions I formatted.

As for what it says when it first boots up...I don't know, he probably doesn't either. He bought it second hand from a rather large company here in Japan. Maybe a phone call to that company would be the best idea?

[jimmalenko]

I'd say if he doesn't have the install disc(s), then he's pretty much SOL unless out of some freak of nature, he or the company he bought it off happened to copy the install disc(s) to the hard drive, either just as files and folders or as an ISO image or similar.


Just FWIW, every time I buy or build a new PC, I put all the OS and driver discs in the motherboard box and store them away for safekeeping. Whenever I need to reformat I just find the box and I know that everything I need is there, ready to go. Others make ghost images.