Acer aspire how to get windows disk when serial number unreadable vista

[Guest]

my acer aspire 8930 has crashed and hard drive scrapped... i have another hard drive but no windows vista installation disk ... the acer has windows seria number on the base but this is unreadable how can i obtain a disk

 

[wanamingo]

You could try calling micro$oft and see if they have that info available for you. You can download a generic Windows Vista install disk and reinstall the OS. But, there is a chance that they cant help you and you'll have to purchase a new product key from them.....Or get Linux....

 

[JDFan]

You could try calling micro$oft and see if they have that info available for you. You can download a generic Windows Vista install disk and reinstall the OS. But, there is a chance that they cant help you and you'll have to purchase a new product key from them.....Or get Linux....

Actually Microsoft does not deal with OEM versions they are handled through the manufacturer so you will want to contact ACER and have your serial # of the system ready and the portion of the Microsoft Product ID that you can still read and they should be able to help get you a new # or sell you a recovery disk (normally you want to make a recovery disk as one of the first things after purchase so you have it if the HDD fails and put it and a copy of the product key away in a safe place for storage for times like you are now in. )

 

[Zoron]

As long as you have functioning restore media, being able to read the product key isn't important. The only time you'll need the product key is to install an actual OEM version of Windows.

 

[JDFan]

As long as you have functioning restore media, being able to read the product key isn't important. The only time you'll need the product key is to install an actual OEM version of Windows.

OR when your HDD has crashed and the restore partition is gone along with it !! --- As he said he has no VISTA Installation Disk I figure that also means no hard copy of the restore media as well.

 

[Zoron]

You can purchase recovery media from Acer... probably a very good idea considering your product key is unreadable. The other option is to upgrade to Windows 7.

Most people don't consider their recovery media a Windows disc since it also contains all the preloaded software. It would be helpful to specify whether or not you have the media rather than an actual Windows disc... since no OEMs provide actual Windows media.