restore cd and deletion



I have a couple questions in regard to what I would do afterI ran dban. I have the dell system restore cd's that came with my comp. It says they are bootable...but will they boot if they disk has been completely erased...if it seems you so could you just use them to install the original software to any comp with a new hard drive, or do they have some means of identifying the particular computer. I don't know much about this stuff so that is why I am asking.

If they are not bootable from a blank disk, could i alternatively just run the restore cd' then reinstall eraser and do a normal wipe of the rest of the hard drive to get rid of anything lingering on it.


It depends on the vendor.

I have restore media from Toshiba that will install an operating system to a blank hard disk, but only on a specific Toshiba computer model. I believe that current restore media from Dell is keyed to ranges of BIOS serial numbers.

I would call Dell technical support and phrase a question like: My old hard drive broke, so I want to get another. Will the Dell restore media install to a new hard disk that is blank?

Note that the party line is "OEM licenses for Microsoft Windows are not transferable".