you would have to dl a dell oem to avoid entering a cd key.
or you can dl acronis trueimage and make a image backup that you can restore whenevr you want
free at western

note, if you use anothr manuf oem version, you may have to change the key or reactivate it you'll get a not genuine icon if you don't.

some other imaging apps for free.
http://www.winvistaclub.com/d75.html

the key will only work with the home version only, not ultimate or pro.

laptop should have a partions with the install files on it. winodw7 cabs or what not.
so all you have to do is wipe out only the windows partion

or maybe I did not understand why you want to wipe the complete drive

Laptop is acting up and I know its down to something installed but can't find what it is so I just thought I complete wipe and start again.

Her last laptop had a partition drive on it....Not really looked at this one but on my computer it has c: drive only can't see a partition unless its stored somewhere else on it.

I dont want to ghost a copy of any files just re-install a fresh copy of windows.

BTW its an Acer laptop

Surely if I download a copy of windows home OEM the CD key that came with the laptop should work?

some of the acer laptops don't come with a restore partition, first use recommends making a backup.
you could use system restore to go back before the problem.
and while you have a acer, a dell oem win7 will install, you may have a problem activating it.

I checked her laptop it did mention something about restore on it when I looked and asked if I wanted to do a clean install of windows so I think it does have something built in.

It just shows C drive on her laptop her last one had c drive and a seperate partition this one I can't find it but when I did a search in programs I found it in there so lets see

Failing that I will try a downloaded copy of 7 and see if I can get it to work failing all that I'll just go out and buy a retail copy of win7

some of the acers have a restore option, but they require that you have a backup to restore, it won't hurt to try but a hidden partition will show up on a pc in disk manager.

had a acer travelmate which I tried the restore, unfortunately it said to insert the restore disk that were created, the user never did create one, fortunately I had a acer win vista restore dvd and got it back up and installed the correct drivers.

go to the acer site
there should be a little utility to dl for that laptop
you run it, it should make you pull out a couple dvds to burn and it will generate factory install disks for you from the image which is on a non fat/ntfs partition

wipe your drive with a formatter and you may kill it

you can tell, use an ubuntu or other live disk to look at the drive with gparted or partition magic
then you will see the partition.

you might be able to see it in logical disk manager under manage my computer
it will be a non windows partition

on my asus it the utility makes a boot disk which is linux and it loads the disk image file from that to factory reset

it takes at least 2 - 4 hours more than using a windows disk. Mine took about 8 hours total.
to get to the friggin "welcome to windows!"
yah.
something that would normally be 45 min to an hour


but it ensures you have the proper drivers from the start as its oem and it also reinitializes all your legit windows update and possibly word or whatever other usefull programs like windows based bios updaters and dvd player software and whatever else that the factory install came with

with the factory install and the key still on the laptop label you will have everything legit and updating.

after all that, when you have it installed and configured
make a bloody trueimage or ghost of it so you never have to do that again.

my suggestion to anyone with one of these (towers come with the factory reset partitions too)is to never delete them.
if you think you want to try
use a nix utility to image the factory reset partition

What I do, when I'm neurotic about not blowing a legit key-software setup, I wipe the os partition clean, then I make a complete disk image of the machine, which is empty except for the factory partition.

Then you have a small disk image that will return you to that state before you blew away the factory partition with partition magic or something to make a non factory windows install.