Recovery format disk

[tiberyus]

Okay, the way it works is this:

I've had This Compaq shipped with Vista pre-installed. Also, there was PRESARIO_RP Partition, to recover the disk in case of some failure.

I installed Ubuntu, dual-boot, enjoyed it a lot, and now I've came into a problem.

My Vista is crashing!

I would just recover it to factory settings, but I'm afraid that would format the entire disk, and not just the Vista partition, and I certainly don't want that!

Moreover, I was hoping it was possible to install it such a way that I can just Virtual Machine my Vista, instead of Dual-Booting. But how in the hell am I supposed to tell my Presario_RP Recovery manager thing to do that?

While browsing for answers on the internet, I found this - http://www.davescomputertips.com/articles/vista/clean_vista_install_without_activation.php - article on how to install Vista without all the useless programs that are attached to it. I didn't read it thoroughly, but it might have something to do illegal. Advice would be helpful.


On the other hand, I might just install something like Windows XP, using some ripped version from Piratebay or something. I guess I'm just afraid that drivers, etc. won't work in that case.

Any ideas/comments/suggestions - more than welcome.

~ Tibby

[Mark Phelps]

Your Presario Recovery Manager is designed to do just that -- reinstall Vista on your drive. If you boot using a CD, it probably just loads a compressed images from a "hidden" partition and uses that to reformat the drive.

My guess would be that it WOULD wipe out any other partitions on the drive -- and everything in the Vista partition as well.

If you go the virtual route, you will need a full Vista installation DVD to load Vista -- even the article you cited mentioned the need for a Vista DVD.

As to the "legality", I'm not sure MS would agree, but all the article is doing is making a copy of the activation info so you can reinstall Vista on that same machine and reactivate it. Since the OEM license is tied to the machine, it's hard to make an argument for that process being "illegal".