Trying to wipe HD clean and reinstall windows 7 home premium 64bit OEM

[nitrojunkie84]

Would like to know what the proper way to go about formating hard drive and reinstalling windows 7 all I have is the repair disk, data back up disk & the Image disk i got the dell laptop from bestbuy and geeksquad did the set up well actually 3 weeks ago my motherboard and processor took a crap and it was replaced but i dont have a windows disk and actually had to get a program to track down the cd key but i dont have any dell software installed in here and its missing to many system files to run down. so i fifgured i would just "start over" so if anyone has any suggestions it would be appreciated. thanks

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Do you have a valid Product Key with 25 characters like this: xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx?


What sounds better:

The PC as it was when shipped from Dell?

A PC with a clean installation of Windows 7 and nothing else?

If you have a valid Product Key and want the latter, not the former, you can download an ISO file form Mydigitallife.info, burn it to a disc, install from that disc, and activate using the Product Key.

There is a different procedure if you want to restore to as when the PC shipped from Dell.

 

[nitrojunkie84]

yes i do have the cd key and i came across all of these issues because windows update told me i could upgrade to ultimate so thats when i found out windows wasnt even activated so i found cd key now its acctivated but its not even coming up as a genuine copy of windows i do have a windows 7 professional boot disk but no cd key so i would rather keep stuff as ligit as possible for now anyway

 

[ignatzatsonic]

yes i do have the cd key............. but no cd key

Do you or don't you have a Product Key with 25 characters that is known to be valid?

You say you do and you say you don't.

I'm not sure what you mean by "CD key".

Do you have a COA sticker on that Dell?

If you don't have a valid Product Key, you can't activate a burned ISO.

Which would mean you are limited to attempting to restore to factory specs with either a Dell built-in partition or with Dell recovery disks.

 

[nitrojunkie84]

yeah sorry i mean product key but yes my windows 7 home premium has a valid product key so i guess the best thing is get the iso file and burn it to disk?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

yeah sorry i mean product key but yes my windows 7 home premium has a valid product key so i guess the best thing is get the iso file and burn it to disk?

That's what I would do.

You won't then have any of the special Dell applications that were on the PC. Maybe you don't care about that.

If you do want the Dell applications, don't use the burned ISO. Instead, do a factory restore.

You have mentioned both Windows Professional and Windows Home Premium, so I'm not sure what you have or originally had.

In your shoes, I would probably call Microsoft and find out exactly what type of Product Key you have.

 

[F5ing]

If you've got your key:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html