I bought HP Laptop 9 months back, which came with vista home premium
with it. now it is running very slowly. So i want to format and
reinstall the vista home premium.

My Question is do I need to get the activation key for the reinstall
also(i have product key of the previous installation)?
is it legal to reinstall home premium with the product key that i have?


--
vijaya23183

Did you get a set of recovery disks? If not you will want to make up a
set before wiping the drive entirely especially if you plan to wipe the
recovery partition on the drive itself. For that you can refer to the
user manual or review instructions at the HP support site for seeing
those made up.

Like any other installation the product key will need be entered before
you can see Windows activated.

As long as the fresh copy of Vista sees the same product key used
originally for the laptop there you won't run into any problems. You can
reinstall Vista a 100 times with the exact same key and never need to
worry on that. MS isn't worried about how many times you re-use the same
key there on the same laptop.


--
Night Hawk

Hi Night Hawk,
Thanks for the information.


--
vijaya23183

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/f...name=c00809678

Above link is all the Recovery information that you require at HP's Website:

How to make Recovery disks, Save Data, etc.

Cheers.
--
Mick Murphy


"vijaya23183" wrote:


I bought HP Laptop 9 months back, which came with vista home premium
with it. now it is running very slowly. So i want to format and
reinstall the vista home premium.

My Question is do I need to get the activation key for the reinstall
also(i have product key of the previous installation)?
is it legal to reinstall home premium with the product key that i have?


--
vijaya23183

vijaya23183;1040891 Wrote:
Hi Night Hawk,
Thanks for the information.

You're welcome! Remember to review the support information just the
same if you are still seeing any extended warranty on it.

The recovery disks if needed can be made up if you haven't already
bought a separate disk with it's own key for seeing a clean install go
on. Those will still be bound to that one laptop however by serial
number and a few other things where you would use the same product seen
in the original sticker or disk sleeve.


--
Night Hawk

"vijaya23183" wrote in message
...

I bought HP Laptop 9 months back, which came with vista home premium
with it. now it is running very slowly. So i want to format and
reinstall the vista home premium.

My Question is do I need to get the activation key for the reinstall
also(i have product key of the previous installation)?
is it legal to reinstall home premium with the product key that i have?


--
vijaya23183

Hi vijaya--

Do you need to format to fix something that may be fixed allowing you to
retain all your material (which recovery disks will NOT do). I'm not being
nosy this morning, but a high percentage of times, people are either ready
to wipe the box and load or people here tell them to wipe the box when the
issue is easily fixed by other means. Here are some steps that should do
that, but you haven't said a scintilla about your reason for formatting.
When someone gets ready to format, they usually have a reason and sometimes
format isn't the best move.

If you need to repair major components of the Vista OS or can't boot, and
don't have a Vista DVD, you can download the .iso from this link and burn
it:

Download Vista Repair Disk
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/

1) First try 3 options from Startup Repair. If you have a Vista DVD then
restart with it in the drivepress any key to boot from it and run Startup
Repair. From Startup Repair you have 3 good tools with an excellent chance
of fixing your system. If you don't have a Vista DVD from which to boot to
Startup Repair, no problem, Download the .iso from the link below and
burn it, and you'll have the Microsoft Vista Repair Disk with Startup
Repair.

Download Vista Repair Disk
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/

How to Use Startup Repair from the Vista DVD or the Repair Disk you make:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tuto...torial142.html

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...f3f351033.mspx

2) If Startup Repair does not get your Vista back, then use the 3 bootrec
commands from the command prompt available on the Statup Repair Menu:

The menu I refer to is in this set of directions with a grey background.

http://vistahomepremium.windowsreins...airstartup.htm

Those a

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuild BCD

3) If my second option doesn't work, then try System restore from the
Startup Repair list.

4) If by rare chance you have an actual Vista DVD, you can put it in, boot
from itchoose the Upgrade Optionchoose your current broken Vista Drive and
try to do a repair install with the Vista DVD.

How To Perform a Repair Installation For Vista
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88...all-vista.html

5) If the above 3 tools don't work, then use the 4 tools available by
restarting your pc and tapping F8 once per second to get to the Windows
Advanced Options Menu.

From this menu click on 3 Safe Mode links to use System Restore. Make sure
you try all 3 if one doesn't work, because just one of them may work.
Tap F8 to Reach Windows Advanced Options Menu Pictured Below:

http://media.photobucket.com/image/v...ot-Options.jpg

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command: At the prompt you would type the command to use
for system restore at the safe mode cmd prompt is:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

If these 3 tools don't work, you have one more you can try which is Last
Known Good Configuration.

Good luck,

CH