I suspect scandisk killed off Q drive which is part of Office 2010 Starter.

I know it's a free product but as all official links have been removed I wont post it here
BUT you can still download it unofficially, google is your friend

Well I did some looking around - there is a menu with F12 that could have SWORN had system restore option but I am not seeing it now.
Maybe better to just leave it alone anyway. I could always try to get a "real" office 2010 disk off ebay 😉

After some reading I downloaded the dell OS recovery app. Haven't installed it yet. As I understand things it downloads the image and burns it to a USB that you can boot from. So I guess up to that point no changes are made to your system. So I suppose no harm done up to that point.
Does anyone have any experience with this?

Which OS?
Windows 10 onwards had its own "media creation tool" that can either perform an in place upgrade or create an iso with some trickery which you can then use to create a USB.
This doesn't change the existing system but is a generic Microsoft image, without any drivers for the system its running on.

I suspect Dell's would be similar but would include some drivers for the system.

It's win7
It seems like my options are:

1. Install the dell reinstall program that creates a bootable USB reinstall drive. I did download it but not install. I *think* this downloads from the internet and not recovery partition. That office 2010 starter might or might not be there. It might not hurt to do that to have an absolute last resort.

2. Reinstall using system restore

3. Just a get a full version of 2010 off ebay. I was looking at that. I wonder how legitimate some of these are. I'll bet there is no DVD - just an access code. I'll further bet that even if you download with an access code, it won't let you keep the install program. The only ones that picture an actual disk are "home and student" versions

4. Windows 98 and office 97 forever

5. Throw the computer in the trash

**THIS ** is why I quit building computer after windows98. Between product activation, not being allowed to keep actual install programs, etc etc the first time something messes up you are out of luck

ncmark wrote on 2024-09-07, 12:32:

After some reading I downloaded the dell OS recovery app. Haven't installed it yet. As I understand things it downloads the image and burns it to a USB that you can boot from. So I guess up to that point no changes are made to your system. So I suppose no harm done up to that point.
Does anyone have any experience with this?

I have a few Dells with the original "came with it" factory install/recovery DVD
it works well and give me a fully operational and activated Win7 system.

But it doesn't install Office!

I think availability of Office in a Dell recovery image would only (maybe) happen if your Dell shipped
from the factory with a full office install! If it was installed later, it definitely won't be on a Dell recovery disk.

If you have the original recovery partition, I might try it and see but I wouldn't think any general
recovery you can download from Dell would have such extras which would not have been included
with every system.

(the factory install/recovery DVD that I have does work on several different models of Dells
that I have - I think it only needs a Dell BIOS ID - but it doesn't have system specific extras)

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

It wasn't a full version of office - it was a "starter"

Advice needed - would you be leery of getting office 2010 off ebay?

ncmark wrote on 2024-09-14, 15:44:

It wasn't a full version of office - it was a "starter"

That doesn't really matter - perhaps I should have said "fully operational office"
What really matters is if it came on the original system from Dell.
Even then there are no guarantees.

Office seems to like "being a pain".

I have a friend who bought a Lenovo - it have Office on it, but the system was unreliable,
very slow and would often die - after talking with tech support and a local shop, Lenovo
agreed to replace the hard drive - which "mostly fixed' the problem, but after recovery
"no Office"!

The same friend recently gave up on the Lenovo (better but still very slow), deciding never
to buy one again, she recently bought an MSI.

It had Office on it which worked - but she wanted more cloud storage space
so she bought "Microsoft 365 Basic"
After that, her on-system Word/Excel etc. would still start, but shortly
after starting a message pops up "Basic 365 doesn't support running this locally"
with offers to sell her an upgrade or she could enter a license key, and then close it all.

What I eventually helped her figure out was that the MSI didn't actual come
with an Office license - it had a factory installed "trial", and either 365 detected
it wasn't "real", or her trial just ran out as she installed "365 basic" .. and the reason
it was offering to accept a key was (I think) if she wanted to license the trial. (She is
retiring and doesn't expect to use Office that much from here on so I think she's just
going to use the web versions included with "365 basic".

But.. like me she doesn't like to replace/update things that are working well for
her -- Msoft is always "fun"!

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

And if I could just go but a copy on disk I could. I doubt any legitimate copy could be bought for 14-year old software. I don't see ebay sellers could be selling disks "used" since the activation software would already have been used.
And like I said, even it it not used you are probably just getting a a download and activation code. And who knows micro$oft might not even allow downloads or activations.
Of course, all this is by design

Quick look on ebay I found a few copies of Home and Business or Academic editions that included the disc.
I just did a search for Office 2010 and ticked the DVD and CD boxes on the side of the search.

Both these versions are "retail" versions that allowed you to move the product to another computer and should activate just fine.
I've done this many times and never had a problem accept once for a Windows 7? licence which just required me to go through the phone activation. At the start I'd have to speak to someone and just said I upgraded the motherboard but even that stopped and now just gets all done via the automated process