Travel Technology - calling all Fujitsu Lifebook users (a help request)

Good evening, peeps. About two days ago, I went a little overboard in my disc clean-up regimen and apparently ended up killing some necessary files from the "temporary internet files" folder.

As a result, my computer is now a paper weight. Interestingly, I was in the same boat about a year ago; I sent it in for a check-up and Fujitsu returned it to me sans operating system.

THe problem is, since I bought it in China, my official license is for the Chinese XP (and recovery disc plus drivers). But, Fujitsu USA can't even give me that because they don't have it.

Last year, I ended up loading the Tablet PC version of XP because my gf also has a Lifebook, but hers is a Tablet (T-series) whereas mine is just a boring S-series. If push comes to shove, I'll go that route again and wait till I return to Asia to reinstall something better.

But, I figured I'd post here first just in case any of you have similar computers; my model is S7111; I don't think they marketed it in the US, but there are a number of similar models. BTW, I tried researching this topic on google, ebay, craigslist, and a few torrent search sites and was shocked to learn how little interest there is in machine-specific recovery disks out there.

Spend the money and buy a legit copy of Windows XP, whatever flavor was running on your box, and it should recover just fine. If your Fujitsu-specific drivers are hosed, and they probably aren't, you can get them from the fujitsu.com site.

May I suggest you to ask the mod to move your thread over to Travel Technology Forum?

I recall some folks are owners of LifeBooks. I am sure you will get some responses and good advice very fast.

Thanks for the replies:

1) mbstone: I have a few legit copies of Windows laying around, but I was hoping to get something Fujitsu specific because my computer runs better on the integrated product
2) Lin: I took your advice and asked for a mod to move this thread.

Moderator Hat On

This is a better fit for Travel Technology. Please follow along there.

Moderator Hat Off

If you reinstall your existing flavor of XP on top of your existing installation, it should not disturb your existing Fujitsu Lifebook drivers or any of your installed software. Find a geekfriend and have them look over your shoulder, or use an Apricorn or equivalent USB hard drive of equal size as your Lifebook's hard drive, and make an exact copy of the Lifebook's drive using the Apricorn disk-imaging software before proceeding.

Update:

I'm back in Portland now and just reinstalled Windows (for the 5th time in my computer's 1.5 year lifetime). Before doing so, I wiped my HD clean, which means that I didn't have any of the Fujitsu drivers at my disposal.

By visiting this page (http://www.pc-ap.fujitsu.com/support/drv_lb_wxp_s7111.html), I was able to grab most of the stuff that I wanted (though, I will admit that I didn't understand what all that stuff was for).

Moving on, the items that continue to perplex me are the following:

1) what driver should I use to rectify the "PCI Bridge" question mark?
2) I really want to get back those green lights that show me my volume and brightness when I press "Fn" and the respective F keys

I've been in this same boat before, but had the Fujitsu guys in BJ to rely upon.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

1. This will probably be the chipset drivers. The chipset drivers should be installed first. On some computers if you don't install them first, you'll end up with question marks in Device Manager that won't go away until you start all over.
2. I think this one is "Fujitsu HotKey."

Been a while since I rebuilt a Fujitsu tablet.