Confused about 'Ghosting'-Hard drive Backup

WhiteLion

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Hey there,

I'll start off by saying I'm not very computer savvy, just use my laptop for Uni work/gaming.
I recently took my laptop into a repair shop to have the hard drive copied onto an external hard drive, i was sending the laptop away to be fixed and was worried that the company (HP) would wipe my hard drive.

I've just got my laptop back and it has indeed been wiped and then had Vista and some freebie programmes installed.

What I really want is to get my computer back to how it was before. I assumed that the computer store would back up the hard drive by making an 'image' of it using Norton Ghost or similar...but it doesn't seem that way. Instead when I plug in the external hard drive 2 new Hard disk drives appear in 'My Computer'- Local Disk (F:) and Recovery (G:) in addition to the usual Local disk (C:) and Recovery (D:)

First question: Is all the information from my old computer that was on the original Hard disk found within these drives? Registry, Installed programmes, system folders etc?

And if so how to I replace the current hard drive information with the information off the portable hard drive to get my old computer back! I can't just drag and drop as there are many programmes saved to the portable hard drive that I no longer have the installation disks for.

Any information would be greatly appreciated...I have to go back to Uni very soon and am not looking forward to it without all my old programmes (like Microsoft Word!)

Regards,
Mikey
 
you should still have the installation disks for word?

if you got work illegaly then I think that you'll have to get it again in the same way.

check withyour uni, they may have an MSDNAA agreement that would mean that you could get MS programs from the uni for personal use.

if all else fails give openoffice a try, it can read and save in word formats, it's free and leagal.
 
There IS a way to restore everything from your external, and I would be willing to reply with how to do it, but you need to understand that you'll be tampering Windows pretty hardcore, while not illegal, is very dangerous. You're not going to blow up the computer, but you may have to format if the process fails at any point.

This is why I haven't replied sooner, I'm not going to be held responsible if the process fails and you have to reformat, especially since you had HP do it the first time and I don't even know if you have the original install discs.

If you completely understand the financial repercussions that you may incur if you don't have the discs, and the process does fail and you are required to reformat yet still want to move forward, then reply back.
 
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