Store-bought computer
by John on June 7, 2009
in Computer tips
Q: I have just purchased a brand-name PC with Vista Home Premium preloaded from a national store. There is no original Vista disk supplied, just instructions for re-installing from the hard disk in case something goes wrong.
A: Welcome to the bad experience of “media-less” (no CD/DVD supplied) operating systems and programs. It’s not Microsoft’s fault but the lousy manufacturer saving a few dollars by not supplying media. The hard disk will have a separate install partition that contains an image of the operating system and drivers which can be reinstated in case of operating system corruption. But it cannot be reinstated if the hard disk fails.
My advice is to first contact the manufacturer and see if you can buy the “media kit” and/or get a driver disk for your PC. This should only cost a few dollars plus postage. If you can’t, ask them if they provide any free utility to create a bootable CD/DVD from the hard disk with the restore “image” on it.
Vista Home Basic and Premium do not come with Windows Complete PC Back-up which can make such an image. However, you can buy products like Acropolis True Image or Ghost and make a bootable operating system and program images.
Sourced from Ray Shaw’s column in The Courier-Mail.
