Upgrading & Fixing Laptops DUMmIES

Be sure to follow all of the instructions exactly as they appear onscreen or in

the computer’s manual; keep in mind that some procedures may be specific

to your laptop model and may differ from other installation procedures you

may have performed. (A few such recovery CDs may not work with a new

hard drive of different specifications from the original drive, but that sort of

unfriendly utility is not all that common.)

If you do choose to use a recovery CD to partition, format, and install an

operating system and applications to a new hard drive, once the machine is

up and running you should immediately visit the Microsoft Update web site

(www.microsoft.com) to install patches to the operating system to bring it up

to date. The recovery CD should also provide Windows drivers specific to the

devices that were originally installed in your notebook. You should also visit

the manufacturer’s web site to check for updates to the drivers or applica-

tions introduced since the machine was first delivered to you. And don’t

forget to install a current antivirus program before using the machine. Don’t

assume that the web sites of application makers are always perfectly safe,

either.

During the operating system installation you will likely be asked to activate

Windows; the Product ID code is usually located on the CD envelope and

sometimes also on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop.

Finally, visit the sites for all applications and update them before you migrate

the data to the new hard drive. In some cases, you may need to contact

customer service for the application makers to inform them that you have

uninstalledan application from one drive and are reinstalling it on a new drive.

They may want to know this as part of their attempt to block software piracy.

Your license generally allows you to run your software on one machine only.

Advanced recovery in Windows 2000 and Windows XP ...............

Advanced users can use the somewhat technical but very powerful Recovery

Console in Windows 2000 or Windows XP for some specialized surgical proce-

dures. You must have administrative privileges to do so. If you are the sole

user on a standalone computer, you are almost certain to be set up as the

administrator; if your system is maintained by a central IT office, you may

need to enlist the assistance of a computing services technician.

Facilities of the Recovery Console include:

Repairing a damaged boot sector

Reading some or all of the data from a drive that is inaccessible to the

operating system

268 Part V: The Software Side of Life