lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 I built a new pc for a friend recently. Its got a MSI K9N Neo motherboard and AMD Athlon 64 cpu. She had a recovery disk which I used to re-install XP. We couldn't find the key for this copy of XP, so she bought VISTA Home Premium. The XP version is now locked out as I was unable to activate it. Thought I could just boot from the Vista CD. I changed the BIOS setup to boot from CD, but it still boots from HDD. Any ideas, my friend is back soon and I wanted to have here PC up and running before she got back. Thanks Quote
Guest Wolfeymole Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Hello Lawgers Welcome to FPCH I'm guessing you did not Save the changes to the bios settings when Exiting. You must save any changes to any bios setting when leaving the bios. Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 I definately saved the changes using f10 Quote
Tony D Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 It's good to see that you purchased a retail copy of Vista. You should he able to boot from the disk. Since this is a new PC, I wonder if the BIOS is seeing the CD Drive. Quote Need help with your computer problems? Then why not join Free PC Help. Register here If Free PC Help has helped you then please consider a donation. Click here We are all members helping other members.Please return here where you may be able to help someone else.After all, no one knows everything and you may have the answer that someone needs.
Guest Wolfeymole Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Ok Can I just ask why you were not able to activate XP? Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 Firstly, the Bios shows the cd drive, so it should be ok? The girl I built the pc for lost the key for the xp copy, she's pretty blonde when it comes to these things! Quote
Guest Wolfeymole Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Yes but lawgers you installed XP so you would have had to insert the 25 digit keycode. You freely admitted so. Please explain further. Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 To be perfectly honest I have no idea, this is my first time of installing an os. She had a recovery disk, it let me continue without the key for a while. It has now locked me out of xp. I couldn't get the other girl to buy vista until pay day (friday). Quote
Guest Wolfeymole Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Ok so you had an XP recovery disk to reinstall the operating system files which should have gone successfully. Did you try to install XP on a brand new system? You are being very vague Lawgers, please be exact in your replies. Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 Sorry, didn't realise I was. I built the pc from scratch, so yeah its brand new apart from the cd drive which was taken from her old pc. Do you think I've done something wrong when I built it, another thing I've never done before! I really don't know what I'm doing! Please help. :) Quote
Tony D Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Referring to post 6, even if the BIOS sees the CD drive, it doesn't mean that the CD drive can recognize and read a CD. If you have this machine set to boot from the CD first and you inserted the Vista install CD, the machine should see and start loading Vista. Do you have another know good CD drive that you can swap with the one in the newly built PC? Quote Need help with your computer problems? Then why not join Free PC Help. Register here If Free PC Help has helped you then please consider a donation. Click here We are all members helping other members.Please return here where you may be able to help someone else.After all, no one knows everything and you may have the answer that someone needs.
Guest Wolfeymole Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Ok it's a new computer with obviously a new hard drive therefore you could not install an XP recovery to it. If the Vista disk is a Recovery disk then you will encounter the same problem. If you possess a fully licensed version of Vista and have set the cdrom drive as first boot then if Vista is not installing then you either have a dodgy/scratched version or the cdrom is not reading the disk. What does it say on the Vista disk you have Lawgers? Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 Yes its a brand new hard drive, the recovery disk, or what she told me was a recovery disk, did work ??? The Vista disk is a full version. It just says Windows Vista Home Premium, 32-bit software only. I'm beginning to think that recovery disk she gave me was a copy! I will be having words with her. Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 As for the Cd-rom, she has used it for music cds before, so it should be ok Quote
Guest Wolfeymole Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Very well we are in a way back to square one. You have a legitimate copy of Vista apparently, you have set the cdrom to boot from that and saved the settings in the bios by pressing F10. What happens now? Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 Sorry I'm not being very helpful am I. Thats right, genuine copy of Vista and I've set and saved the Bios to start up cd-rom first. It then starts from the hard drive, the cd rom light comes on a for a few seconds but thats it. It starts XP, then asks me to activate it. Quote
Guest Wolfeymole Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 You have not saved the setting in the bios Lawgers. Go back into the bios and set the first boot sequence as cdrom, save the settings and insert the vista disk. The vista disk should then proceed to install. Quote
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 I assure you that I have saved the bios settings, and they are as I set them when I re-entered bios. Quote
Tony D Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 a shot in the dark here as I don't have your computer in front of me .... sometimes even if you set the BIOS to boot from the CD first, you get a message on the screen asking you to press any key if you really want to boot from the CD. Do you get this message? Quote Need help with your computer problems? Then why not join Free PC Help. Register here If Free PC Help has helped you then please consider a donation. Click here We are all members helping other members.Please return here where you may be able to help someone else.After all, no one knows everything and you may have the answer that someone needs.
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 Thanks for replying, no I didn't get any messages, it just started straight up from hdd onto xp. Quote
Tony D Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 I'm thinking you have a problem with either the Vista CD or the CD drive. Can you try booting from the Vista CD on another computer? Can you try another CD drive? Quote Need help with your computer problems? Then why not join Free PC Help. Register here If Free PC Help has helped you then please consider a donation. Click here We are all members helping other members.Please return here where you may be able to help someone else.After all, no one knows everything and you may have the answer that someone needs.
lawgers Posted June 29, 2008 Author Posted June 29, 2008 I have an old cd-rom, i will give it a try. If I try to boot on another pc I don't have to install it do I? Quote
RandyL Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Vista on CD? Do you mean DVD? Do you know how many CD's it would take for Vista? Quote We are all members helping other members. Please return here where you may be able to help someone else. After all, no one knows everything and you may have the answer that someone needs.Get help with computer problems. Join Free PC Help here Donations are welcome. Read Here
Tony D Posted June 29, 2008 Posted June 29, 2008 Good point - Vista comes on a DVD. I should have realized that!!!!. So even if the CD drive is working and the media is OK, it won't recognize the Vista install DVD. Can you replace the CD drive with a DVD drive? Quote Need help with your computer problems? Then why not join Free PC Help. Register here If Free PC Help has helped you then please consider a donation. Click here We are all members helping other members.Please return here where you may be able to help someone else.After all, no one knows everything and you may have the answer that someone needs.
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