Mother in law needs help with laptop.

[Maurice]

She has an older toshiba satellite laptop it's got a dual core pentium.

Anyway, it has a bunch of garbage on it, and I told her it would be etter to reformat and start freash.

She bought it from some guy, and does not have a cd for the os, or any backup disk.

It's running vista, and I was wondering can I just use a vista cd, and her key(on the bottom of laptop) to do a freash install and be done with it?

I have never worked on a laptop or name brand pc. Is there anything I should know, or a different way I should go about doing this?

Thanks.

[Mr.Scott]

Her key will be for an OEM copy of Vista, it won't work on a retail copy. Just letting you know that.
Other than that, yes, you can use any OEM Vista disk and her key to do the format/installation. You'll have to get the lappy's drivers from the manufacturer's site after the install.

[Maurice]

OK thanks.

Since I have the key, can I just download an iso?

[Mr.Scott]

Sure .

[Maurice]

Thanks Mr. Scott.

[Sheep221]

Originally Posted by Mr.Scott

Her key will be for an OEM copy of Vista, it won't work on a retail copy. Just letting you know that.
Other than that, yes, you can use any OEM Vista disk and her key to do the format/installation. You'll have to get the lappy's drivers from the manufacturer's site after the install.

This is not correct, there is no thing such as OEM or Retail Installation, only OEM or Retail key. You can get any vista installation CD and when you type the license key you will get your system automatically activated and you will also get selected your license version(eg home premium).
The drivers you will acquire from Toshiba website.

[Mr.Scott]

Originally Posted by Sheep221

This is not correct, there is no thing such as OEM or Retail Installation, only OEM or Retail key. You can get any vista installation CD and when you type the license key you will get your system automatically activated and you will also get selected your license version(eg home premium).
The drivers you will acquire from Toshiba website.

Bet me.
An OEM number will not work on a retail CD.

[PommieB]

Sheep221, where did you get that idea from, oem serial No's have never worked on retail Windows OS's, do you know the difference between oem and retail. The install on the Toshiba laptops used to be a propriety version of windows with a Toshiba serial No., these days the OS is probably a standard oem version of windows which requires a oem serial No. Check the COA label under the laptop.

[pheonix991]

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thr...-Vista-OEM-DVD

BAM!

[BigE4u]

Toshiba is great for having the correct drivers for their individual models, have a lQQK here to find what you need...

Link - http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...nload&sn=false

1. laptops / 2. satellite / 3. model number

Granted vista, like win7 will most likely setup your hardware automatically, but i find it best to download the updated drivers from the manufacturers website.

Im thinking vista home premium x32 OEM is what you'll be needing, i own the same brand of laptop, model# a205-s5825 that i purchased new back in may/2008 and with the same operating system, a T2370(1.73/1mb) dualcore cpu and 1gb(2x512) pc2-5300 memory... but i promptly upgraded to a T7700(2.4/4mb) core2duo cpu and 2gb ram(max) even though 3gb(2+1) works, but not 4gb(2+2), it refuses to boot and its setup for dual booting(xp/win7), still works great to this day.