Want to reinstall windows!

[thebiguglyone]

How do I go about reinstalling Vista on a laptop?
I have had Ubuntu on my nephews laptop and have been impressed with it's speed and simplicity but am having problems with the wireless and just can't be bothered with all the messing around trying to get it to work.

I made a reinstall disk from Vista before I installed Ubuntu but it doesn't work when I just put the disk in and restart. Should it do this or do I need to reinstall the windows Boot-loader first?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[lisati]

It could be anything from making sure your computer is set to boot from disk to a bad burn.

[thebiguglyone]

So are you saying that It should just boot when I restart the computer?

It is set to boot from disk.

[Mark Phelps]

I made a reinstall disk from Vista before I installed Ubuntu ...

Are you sure it's not just a Repair disk? That can not be used to reinstall Vista; it can only be used to repair the boot loader.

If you made the disk using instructions from the laptop vendor, and it doesn't work, you should contact the laptop vendor and see about them sending you full reinstall disks. They'll most probably charge you for them, but the cost should be a LOT less than buying Vista outright.

[wookieshaver]

As an alternative route, did you use the entire hard drive when installing Ubuntu or did you leave the laptop manufacturer recovery partition intact? If the recovery partition is present you may be able to reinstall windows that way. Most laptop manufactures indicate what fN key to press on the BIOS splash screen to access the recovery partition. (like f9, f10, f11 that sort of thing) For example, for HP laptops it is f11 usually.

[thebiguglyone]

Thanks for your replies.

I'm sure the disks should be a full reinstall, but they do only call them "recovery disks". Hmmm. The option when I created them was either using 7 CD's or 2 DVD's. I went for the DVD option. When I try to look at the contents on Ubuntu, it shows disk 1 as being blank which doesn't seem very promising.

I carried out the creation instructions correctly as far as I am aware.

The laptop is a HP Compaq and is still under warranty so I shouldn't have any problem obtaining the disk's off them, I think £30 was the price they had for them.

Wookieshaver- I unfortunately let Ubuntu have it's wicked way with the full hard drive as I didn't have any intention of going back to Vista with it, just a shame that Ubuntu has this wireless card issue. Looked into the fixes and it all sort of goes "whoooosh" over my head!

[wilee-nilee]

If the recovery discs are not going to work contact HP and get the OEM replacement set, then you can always reinstall and have a auto activate key, on that computer.