Serial No. recovery ?

[Ex-Bay]

So we have a Fujitsu/ Siemens laptop /notebook PC thing at the spacies.
Some fool has screwed it royally.

It wants to run UBUNTU but the only bloke who understood this has long gone to places far and new.
It has Win XP Home as well. (oh, please do not ask why; someone else did it - honest, Chief)
It seems to have several partitions.
When it lights up, it goes through the usual nonsense, then goes blank screen.
I used the "Tools Disc" from e-bay which features a mini-XP and the thing works when booted externally from the CD.

I do not know if or where the supplied disc might be, so I've a mind to try and mount XP Pro on it.
Snag: the brand new, unused, XP Pro disk does not seem to have the complex code number, but has the "book". Bearing in mind that Windows always seem to want this number, how do I find out this number ?

All practical advice about the resurrection of this nice machine would be very welcome.

PS. I have managed to get into the Fujitsu website and captured a few of their software, but it does not seem to be a comprehensive set.

 

[monobrow]

how do I find out this number ?

Usually it's a sticker attached to the case of the laptop (Underneath). If you have no CD Key then it won't install and you won't be able to activate it.

 

[monobrow]

The Windows Product Key on the bottom of the laptop will not work with another Windows Disk. The key provided on the sticker is for the software that came with the laptop.

To get this to work, you need to get hold of the original laptop software. This can be done by purchasing a software disk from Fujitsu etc, or try to get hold of a backup disk for that model of laptop from eBay etc.

When you load the software onto the laptop, you probably wont be asked for the key as it will read it from the motherboard/memory/hard drive etc. I was told that if you change a piece of the hardware (ie Changed a Toshiba harddrive in a Toshiba laptop) the hardware signature for the Product key would be different, and you would need to go through the telephone activation where Microsoft will issue another Product key.

All of the above, not strictly true. You can have an OEM disk (supplied with a computer) work with an OEM key (stuck on a different computer) although branded (Dell, HP, etc) tend to be more fussy. If you have the right disk for the right hardware, you should not need to activate it as OEM software can be pre-activated for ease of installation.

Also you don't need to phone anyone, unless you try to re-activate your XP within 14 days of you last activating it. The internet based activation has worked everytime even on major component change and when I've been a dimwit and bolloxed my install, it's an automated service where you punch in some numbers on the keypad and it spits back an activation key.

Changing hardware can invalidate the activation, however you would have to change quite a bit for it to moan. IIRC it hashes together hardware ID's of hard drive, cpu, main board, graphics, network. When it detects a change it rehashes it and compares. If you do more than 3 (I think) you will have to re register, so changing a motherboard which has a new CPU, Network, onboard graphics.....

 

[Ex-Bay]

Close inspection of the bronze-copper-whatever colour of the disc, I think it is an OEM disk, although I do not think it is for this particular laptop.
It's all a bloody nuisance.
I feel a rant coming on. . . .

 

[Big Jock]

You could always try to recover the laptop to factory settings. Reboot the computer and then hold down either Ctrl + F11 or Alt + F11. This should give you access to the recovery partition which will allow you to reset to factory settings. You may have to try several times before it will access the menu.

John

 

[Lamptramp]

"UBUNTU" is a name for the linux operating system.

You can download it and install on a memory stick.

You can then boot from the stick and explore the HDD of the machine.

You could install it and use the machine as normal.

In fact UBUNTU comes with all the Open Office applications built in.

JBH