[turley714]

I have two refurbished gateway laptops with windows vista home premium.
the are not the exact same model but very similar hardware. Now the problem is that one of them crashed. The hard disk is completely inoperable. I have no restore disk only the recovery partition which i can't access. I have ordered a new hard disk but i can't get the recovery disk from gateway because, i suppose, it is refurbished. Now the questions

Can I make a recovery disk from from the recovery partition on laptop B to install on laptop A. I would change the license after the install of course. Or could i copy the partition through my network to the new hard disk on a third computer? Would it work? They are SATA drives and should work in another computer just fine. I would love some help .... if I can't i suppose i will bit torrent vista because i own the license so I don't feel bad doing it.... but it still seams like I could get in trouble.

[DaveA]

Gateway should be able to sell you a set of recover disk fro this failed system.
All of the other OEM's do as far I know.

I have gotten them from Sony and HP for less than $30.00 US including shipping.

[turley714]

I called them and tried to order one but they said that they could not send me one and that somebody would be contacting me about it. I have not recieved a call . that was four days ago.

Secondly I really don't think I should have to buy a replacement CD for something I was never given.... It is bad practice for OEM's to not give you a recovery disk. I am really not happy with this new industry standard to not give you your software on a disk.

I think people should quit buying computers from companies that don't give you the software with it. I know i won't anymore