Acer laptop Win 7 Ultimate x64 OEM, how to clean install without disk?

AddRAM said:

Either that or just pay for the recovery discs, it would be cheaper then buying windows.

The choice is yours :)

It's a no-brainer, thanks addRAM, great name by the way, it's so advisable it should be compulsory (adding RAM to a machine that is) which reminds, me, if memory is cheap at the moment (yeah we have Black Friday over here too now) then I should upgrade the lappy with another 4GB. As well as replacing the my router. It all adds up though, gotta save where you can!

I am still waiting on a couple of peeps recommended by alphanumeric and torchwood, superfly and Noel, who I'm told may be able to say whether the recovery discs can be used for OEM-SLP activation with a BIOS tampered with by counterfeiters, i.e. by updating with the latest official BIOS first. Unless anyone else reading this has an idea.

Yeah, I admit, I was suckered in, bought it in a hurry on the way to the airport, probably hungover and didn't check for the COA. Great holiday though, and you're right Layback, it's a beautiful place, no plans to visit again soon though. If I can establish that recovery disks will work with an updated BIOS, it will indeed be cheaper than buying windows, and that can't be bad!

AddRAM said:

Get the quote for the price of the Recovery Discs and post us, we`ll let you know if it`s worth it.

Ok. The Recovery Discs will cost £51 / $77. A new spin is, I have a student account with MS Dreamspark, and could install Windows Embedded Standard 7, 8 or 10. I'd prefer to stay with 7, but WES 7 from Dreamspark is only 32bit, no good if I add RAM. Could always go for WES10 and try and try and disable all the snooping settings. Either way, it's a fall back, and licenses absolutely free.

AddRAM said:

Until I hear from the OP about the COA, I`m done.

AddRAM, re: the COA, as I said in the other thread, I bought the laptop in a rush on the way to the airport thinking it was a good deal and didn't check for the COA. Last night I looked inside the battery compartment and found nothing, so there's no COA. Could this be another reason the Recovery Disks may not work? Even if update the BIOS? Re: flashing the bios, I haven't done it before, but then, I reseated the hard disk in a friend's Thinkpad today, something else I've never done before, so, if I can find instructions and follow them to the word, I'd be prepared to give it a go :) and hold no one responsible but myself.

AddRAM said:

I seriously doubt if the Bios was tampered with, that`s not what the guys meant, they meant that someone used an activator that uses another bios`s slic table to activate windows on a different manufacturers PC, Your bios should be fine.

When you use the recovery discs window is automatically activated by matching up witht he correct manufacturers bios, don`t worry about it, you`ll be fine.

Do not upgrade/flash the bios unless you know exactly what you`re doing. Check the version of what you have, then check the vendors site to see if there is a newer one, then see if there is anything in the newer bios that you need.

alphanumeric said:

How do you tell if the BIOS was modified or not? the mgadiag seems to say it was? Not agreeing or disagreeing, just if it was my latop i'd want to know. If it was modded his recovery media will not work. The SLIC table will be incorrect.

AddRAM said:

If an activator was used or any other method for that matter the mgadiag would show that, (which it does) and what it`s designed for, remember you are running that from windows :)
If the OP is worried and knows what he`s doing, then flash the bios.

alphanumeric said:

showkey showed an OEM Marker in the firmware, I don't think it would if there was a boot loader. I would think rweverything will tell you for sure, it reads right from the BIOS. If you hunt around and find a grub boot loader, and your not dual booting with Linux, question answered for sure I would think. If it's a boot loader there will be traces of it on the hard drive and in Windows.

I've downloaded rweverything but I can't find which report to run, is it SMBIOS Structures? I'll go back to your previous post cos I think you recommended a tutorial.

I'm a bit confused about what we're hoping to find with rweverthing. Is it to find if the BIOS has been modified? If so, great, but I am thinking, if I go ahead and update the BIOS, it won't matter whether it was modified anyway, will it? Because I assume the most recent BIOS update will include the OEM identifier needed by the certificate on the Recovery Disk. All the same, I'm just as curious now to know whether it was modified or not. Because if it wasn't, then I think I have understood as per addRAM's post , that counterfeiters don't need to modify a BIOS, they just use a bootloader which in my case has used an HP bios`s slic table to activate windows on the Acer, which is then embedded in my installation and identified by MGADiag. I'm understanding the BIOS may be untouched.

You say alpha, showkey showed an OEM Marker in the firmware and you don't think it would if a bootloader was used, so I'm understanding you think the BIOS has been modified, and I can post the SMBIOS structures from rweverything if that helps to determine it one way or another.

I'll also have a hunt around for a grub boot loader so I can, run a grub boot loader report with it? I'll try and figure it out.

Ok, you guys get my vote for counting among the best advisors on here, thanks for all your knowledge and interest, I'll try and spread the good karma :)

I would like to put my faith in the OEM and, yes, I will ask them if the current official BIOS supports Windows 7, good thinking, thanks. As for expecting them to supply recovery media that doesn't work, tbh, I don't trust many companies nowadays, as the majority seem to have the honesty and integrity of cracked warez, and use every trick to dodge responsibility and increase profits. As for a guarantee, I could ask them on the telephone to put it in writing and they might fob me off and say they can't give a written guarantee or even a verbal one on the telephone, and it's up to me. I must admit, I am pretty weary by the whole thing, probably because it is my problem I am working on. I don't even know anymore whether if I surrendered and bought a new retail Win 7 OS, and updated the BIOS, whether it would work, or whether the official BIOS 'only' supports Win 8 and above. So if you do figure out where in rweverything supported OS are confirmed, it would be much appreciated. But, they have to tell me the truth, right? As far as they know, it should work. Yes, a guarantee would be appropriate, in fact, normal. You buy something, it should work, it doesn't work, you take it back.

Tis the season indeed, and in the same breath I'm telling myself Illegitimi non carborundum