[MOUSEHOLE]

Hi again, I can`t see windows old anywere,
My mate said he wipe everything off to do with premium when he put his disk in for ultimate. On the bottom it say`s TOSHIBA L300D.

[rainforest123]

m h:
Did you make the changes I suggested?

Wiping everything does not tell us if your mate deleted the recovery partition. What exactly is meant by "wiping" the hard drive. Deleting does not equal "wiping" in a data recovery scenario. Re-formatting does not delete the files. To wipe a hard drive, one needs to follow unique steps.

Here is one method to wipe, aka securely erase, a hard disk drive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutmann_method

Before using your computer, if you have / had important documents on it, try to recover them. There are multiple programs available for data recovery.

Commercial & expensive
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/

Free or shareware
http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-products.htm

Professionals
http://www.lazarus.com/

Others, in this thread, have provided instructions for trying to use the recovery partition Toshiba provides. If you can find your data AFTER you have recovered your important data, try to restore your system.

RF123

[MOUSEHOLE]

Hi Mate, I spoke to my mate & he said because i had lost or deleted some of my vista drivers he would remove the rest & then put ultimate on which he did. A pc repair shop has told me they have a disk & they can take ultimate off & using my mircosoft number or key will replace it with athe proper premium & it will be like new, This sounds ok as we don`t save anything on it apart from my lads music (if you can call it that)
It will cost about £60 to do this what do you think?
Thanks again for all the help everyone.
Mouse

[etaf]

you could ask toshiba for a set of recovery CDs
give the support line a call and see if they sell then for your machine

[rainforest123]

mousehole:
Regarding music, I understand.

I sure wish Microsoft had included a utility w / Vista SP1 to allow users to create an installation disk.

Another thread at TGF, this week, had a similar problem. Someone noted this site.
http://www.techsupportforum.com/hard...tructions.html

Has instructions for accessing the recovery partition on many computers.



The following is not intended to be a criticism of anyone. If the computer has a tool / utility that gives you the opportunity to create a set of recovery disks, do so.

There are many disk imaging programs available; some free, some commercial. Search TGF for terms such as disk image or imaging.

I read recently of DriveImageXML, at TGF. http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

I don't know the usefulness of such a product if the restore process needs Windows installed.

I have no experience with imaging programs. I clone my HDDs using Acronis. For my lappies, I use the OEM's disk recovery creation program.

Best of success.

RF123