> > Eric House wrote: > >> This is a rant, a warning, and a request for help. The help part: any > >> ideas on how to get Windows 7 Starter onto a netbook for which it's > >> licensed without buying a disk? > >> > >> The story: we've been waiting for the "Pinetrail" version of the Atom > >> to show up in netbooks, and so when Costco started carrying the > >> Samsung N-150 I snapped one up. As soon as it arrived I installed > >> Ubuntu "Netbook Remix". The installer for that distro doesn't support > >> LVM and won't let you install without creating a swap partition, so a > >> minimum of two partitions were required. Samsung's setup used three, > >> so I wiped it, figuring I could restore later (after enabling LVM and > >> freeing up the swap partition), and moved on. > >> > >> Big mistake. The device does not ship with any recovery media.
I promised an update on this saga. I tried downloading first a "Windows 7 Ultimate" OEM image, then the same for "Windows 7 Starter." Though I'd read that the former would allow me to install any version of Win7, it only offered to install Ultimate, and that failed when I input the key that came with my netbook. The starter image, however, installed successfully. That left me with a dual-boot system, but without the restore partition that came on the device. And without some drivers, though those seem to be available from Samsung's site. At some point I had a chat conversation with a Samsung tech about restoring the missing partition. After some time -- it was apparently a new question for him -- I was told that my only option was to send the netbook to their repair facility to have the disk restored to factory defaults. I got partway through filling out an online request form for this service -- wasn't able to complete it because it didn't like my browser -- and it appeared that my only cost would be shipping one-way to them. We'll probably go this route if only for the experience. The Samsung tech didn't feel that not having the restore partition would mean my warranty was void. The earlier rep may have been misinformed. Downloading those OEM images was my only experience with bittorrents since I stopped grabbing Knoppix images years ago. I seemed to be in a very small minority having a license for what I was, to all external impressions, "pirating". :-) Thanks for all the tips on this! --Eric -- ****************************************************************************** * From the desktop of: Eric House, [email protected] * * Crosswords 4.4 for WinMobile plays over the internet: xwords.sf.net * ****************************************************************************** _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
