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Old Laptop, No Recovery Disks

Joppsta

So I have this old laptop I plan to breathe new life into with an SSD and reinstall of windows. Problem is, I never bothered making recovery disks for said laptop.

 

I'm guessing it's just a case of browsing the manufacturer's or my favourite torrenting website but I wanted to ask here just so I don't brick my laptop.. even though it's a few years old (5 or 6 at this point I think?) I would still like it to be in working order by the time I'm done :P

 

I've no need for any of the data on it, as far as I'm aware anyway.

 

And no, I don't have model numbers to hand. I can't even remember what manufacturer it is! I know this'll help when it comes to getting everything prepared.. just wanting to make sure I'm not going to do any laptop bricking.

 

Cheers,

 

- Joppsta

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So I have this old laptop I plan to breathe new life into with an SSD and reinstall of windows. Problem is, I never bothered making recovery disks for said laptop.

 

I'm guessing it's just a case of browsing the manufacturer's or my favourite torrenting website but I wanted to ask here just so I don't brick my laptop.. even though it's a few years old (5 or 6 at this point I think?) I would still like it to be in working order by the time I'm done :P

 

I've no need for any of the data on it, as far as I'm aware anyway.

 

And no, I don't have model numbers to hand. I can't even remember what manufacturer it is! I know this'll help when it comes to getting everything prepared.. just wanting to make sure I'm not going to do any laptop bricking.

 

Cheers,

 

- Joppsta

well for one you should buy windows not steal it.

 

2. you should definitely download your laptops drivers (networking is an absolute must) as chances are windows wont have generic drivers to make it work.

 

other than that check it is set to boot from CD/USB in the BIOS and install away.

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well for one you should buy windows not steal it.

 

2. you should definitely download your laptops drivers (networking is an absolute must) as chances are windows wont have generic drivers to make it work.

 

other than that check it is set to boot from CD/USB in the BIOS and install away.

 

Well, I assume the laptop has a license key to go with it so I'll use that and my Win7 disk I have for my desktop.

 

Thanks for giving me the heads up!

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Okay so the laptop is Acer Aspire 5935G.. I had to snigger though.

 

3GB RAM and a Core 2 Duo processor @ 2.2GHz with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570, to think when I got this for Christmas all those years ago it was brilliant! Funny thing is, had I not gotten this laptop I think I may have never built my PC and all that.. ah nostalgia.

 

Anyway back to business: I've successfully got it running with the SSD in it, not even having to jerk around with reinstalling windows.. although I've not installed the drivers just yet. I was weighing up a clean install and to be honest, I'd like to but I've ran into a hilarious issue.

BIOS password. Having spoken to a Russian friend of mine, there are several ways I can go about cracking said password, along with my Googlefu also helping in the process. Options seem to be... MSDOS command (I have never used DOS, don't even know how to install it), run a BIOS cracker, pull the CMOS out of it or take it to a professional.

 

Being the professional that I am, I'd like the advice of one of my fellow professionals. Which would be the easiest way to do it? I've already cracked open the relatively easy to open parts of the shell (aka the parts they want you to access for upgrades) couldn't see the CMOS or anything resembling jumpers to reset BIOS. Tried to open the shell but the screws are torqued pretty tight so alas, I'd like to go with a software route moreso than hardware if possible.

 

So.. if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading and what do you suggest?

 

Cheers,

 

- Joppsta

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