Laptop Hard Drive Dying and Want to Start From Scratch

[Guest Tom Arthurs]

Hi All,

 

 

Im having a few issues with my laptop and was wondering if anybody could give me a little advice.

 

 

Firstly a bit of background info (feel free to offer advice if i haven't tried something, but as far as my own knowledge and the help of google, I've exhausted all options that i can see or find) my laptop (Dell XPS 17) is 3 years old, is Running Windows 7 and only recently has gone completely off the rails. It just started doing what google seems to call "System Repair Loop". I ran a diagnostic on the drive, and got an error code (00000xE or something, was a while ago, basically said the drive was messed up). I removed the drive, and using an external reader, managed to access it fine with no issues, and backed up most of the important stuff.

 

 

Oh and also the windows OEM 7 sticker on the bottom of the laptop is completely worn out, and with no access to the registry ( online says i can pull the key from there) Im product key less, when it comes to a fresh install, so the best i could do would be an attempt to fix with a boot CD. ( Online seems to suggest that neither microsoft or dell can help me with replacing my key without a cost)

 

 

When attempting to fix with a boot CD (digital river .iso download burnt onto a DVD, my laptop didn't come with windows recovery disks or anything, just the very handy dell driver disks >_> <_< ) The laptop seems to access the files off the disk fine, but then just hangs on "Setup is starting" with a spinning cursor, i've left this for a couple hours at a time with no progress, I've tried what most of the internet seems to suggest, from removing extra RAM, to turning off usb ports and the like in the BIOS, to no avail.

 

 

So i figured i would get a new hard drive, and as i have no product key, instead of buying a new version of windows 7 for the key, i might as well upgrade to windows 8. Then i could just plug my old drive in as a secondary hard drive, to keep the data intact.

 

Here my google research seems to throw another spanner in the works, some places seem to suggest that due to the OEM licensing (and this is where my computing knowledge begins to get lost) , product information is stored in the BIOS settings of some laptops with something called SLP or something, meaning that even if i manage to get a new hard drive with a fresh windows 8 install, the computer wont work, due to it needing to have 7 installed and then upgraded to 8, as opposed to 8?

 

 

Am i completely off? did any of that make sense? Fixing the problem/keeping windows 7 is all secondary now, i just need somebody with better experiance than me to see if my plan would work,

 

 

Thank You

 

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