Demand A Boot Disk, People!
- 3
- Add a Comment
- No Related Post
This is a public service announcement.
Today I am preparing to fix yet another computer that has a supposedly legitimate copy of Windows XP on it. However, the guy who built it for my client did not supply him with any documentation or a boot CD.
Now I love BitTorrent just as much as the next guy. In fact I have Transmission running right now. But when it comes to your operating system, things change. No matter which one you choose, do yourself a favor and save yourself countless headaches. Buy it. You can easily get an OEM copy of Windows from places like Tiger Direct or NewEgg. Having that disk is quite possibly the most pivotal tool in any troubleshooter’s arsenal. If you don’t have a boot CD, then back up, back up, back up. Use a utility to make an image of your hard drive like Norton Ghost or SuperDuper on the Mac.
-Spencer Nick a.k.a TachyonXero
[tags]xp,bootcd,psa,backup,ripoff,piracy[/tags]
3 Comments
Jonathan Rasmussen
September 17th, 2007
at 8:18pm
Well said! If anything, understated. It’s a blinkin’ scandal that OEM computers no longer come equipped with the OS on a CD, even as an extra-cost option. And what do we receive as a consolation prize? Those cheerfully titled “recovery” CDs that would more properly be labeled “destruction disks,” since, in the hands of normal, inexpert users seeking to recover data, they are likely to obliterate it instead.
You exhort the user to “do yourself a favor” by buying a second copy of Windows just to have one on a CD. How about exhorting Dell, HP, et alia to do us a favor–it’s hardly even that–by providing on CD the copy we’ve paid for?
Is it even legal for retailers to do us the “favor” of selling OEM copies to consumers? Even if the mechanics of registration and “activation” don’t block it, I think the vast gray corpus of the EULA forbids it.
I don’t want an expensive, possibly illicit “favor.” I just want the OS I paid for when I bought my computer–on a CD, thank you, just in case the computer’s only moving part might someday fail.
Aryeh Goretsky
September 18th, 2007
at 12:34am
Hello,
You can make a bootable floppy diskette in Microsoft Windows XP by opening the My Computer icon on the Desktop, right-clicking the floppy disk drive icon in the window, choosing Format from the popup context menu and then checking the Create an MS-DOS Startup Disk option when formatting the diskette.
If a computer does not ship with media to reinstall the operating system and any other preloaded software, then it may have an option to create these on a recordable CD or DVD. Check with the manufacturer to see what the specific instructions are for this.
There are several programs available to create a bootable CD from which to repair damaged Microsoft Windows installations, such as BartPE and Ultimate Boot CD.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Anonymous
September 18th, 2007
at 10:33am
It doesn’t prove it isn’t legit because he doesn’t have the install media. Maybe it is on the hard disk (copied over the setup program and CAB files?)
Maybe he used a general disc but gave a unique product key that is legitimate.
YES he should have offered them an original disc and their product key.
Documentation should be included (basic) but most of it is built in anyway.
AGREED that OEMs should provide an OS disc not just a recovery disc.