Clean install Vista Upgrade - no previous OS?

LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
edited January 2009 in Science & Tech
I'm considering buying a very slightly used laptop with an apparent dead/unusable hard drive. There is no restore CD/DVD. The seller is inlucing for free a legit Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade DVD.

I'm reading that you can do a clean Vista Upgrade installation on a fresh hard drive. Here's just one of the guides I've seen. Does it really work? Has anyone here actually done this?

Comments

  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    If you install the trial, you can supposedly install the full copy as an upgrade... from the trial.

    If not, you don't have an old spare copy of XP?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    I have OEM and retail XP copies, all of which are currently installed on computers. Does the OS over which the "upgrade" is installed have to be activated for the upgrade to be activated?
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Judging from the fact that you could install the full Vista over the trial version, I'd say no. I'd try that way first, really. Install it, and just don't give it a CD key. Then reboot, "install," and give it the key.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    I hope this helps. Microfascist makes it impossible to copy valid links. So I did a copy and paste to wordpad. You need to format the drive first, then install without the key and then do a re-install from what I gathered between this and another I found in MS technet.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Wow, thanks, guys! This laptop, even with the shot hard drive, is pretty nice - 2 months old, 17" screen, Turion X2 2.0GHz, 3GB DDR2, wireless, LAN, CDR/DVDR, Vista Ultimate Upgrade (retail DVD), Radeon X1250 (1440X900) for $250. Q, yes you warned me. But if I can't get it working with a new hard drive ($69 Office Depot SATA 250GB), then I can still go through Toshiba's one year warranty.

    Am I seeing things clearly?

    (don't care much about battery runtime - this is for hotel use mainly),
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    It's running now! No Windows installation was needed. I just ran the recovery CD set on a new hard drive.

    Check it out!
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Leonardo wrote:
    It's running now! No Windows installation was needed. I just ran the recovery CD set on a new hard drive.

    Check it out!

    Awesome!!! :cool:
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