Swapping Out For A New Hard drive

[coldoven]

I'm in need of more space so i'm installing a new, more beefy hard drive in my laptop. After doing so, will I be able to reinstall the copy of XP that came with my computer years ago? Is there some procedure I need to do to authenticate myself as the legal user? Or am I out of luck and looking to buy a new edition of XP? Thx.

Edited October 2, 2008 by coldoven

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Every 4-6 months MS flushes their cache of XP keys...

So unless yours was released on the net and got blacklisted all you will have todo is activate over the internet.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

I'm in need of more space so i'm installing a new, more beefy hard drive in my laptop. After doing so, will I be able to reinstall the copy of XP that came with my computer years ago? Is there some procedure I need to do to authenticate myself as the legal user? Or am I out of luck and looking to buy a new edition of XP? Thx.

If you are installing Windows onto the new HDD (i.e., starting over) you can collect the Digital Product ID and other important information from the current registry to make yourself legal. Or you can simply activate with the worse case being a voice phone call.

If you are NOT installing Windows and just want to upgrade the HDD leaving Windows as it currently is then you want to Clone the old disk contents to the new one (C: to C:). Each HDD manufacturer has a CDROM to do this. If your new drive is 'retail' (not OEM) it usually comes with the Disc. Experiences using Seagate/Maxtor drives as either the old or new drive can be learned about here. See post #5 and post #9.

Either of these scenarios is perfectly legit but not as easy as it should be.

[coldoven]

Thx much peoples. Now I can move forward. U aint kidding, Charlotte-- the whole procedure could be much more user friendly. It seems unneccisarily difficult. W/O good reason.

$