Cannot restore MS Office XP after rebuild

[Phil Payne]

Hello,

I have a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 3 with RAID 1 (Mirrior) configuration.

Recently a Raid drive failed and it had to be replaced which involved a complete 'rebuild'.

Prior to replacement I copied all 'C:' drive folders and files to a new Seagate external drive.

Since RAID rebuild I have installed a clean Windows XP Pro, 'upgraded' it to SP3 (from SP2) and re-installed all my applications except one - MS Office XP.

On trying to reinstall/start MS Office straight from the external drive by clicking the .exe files I keep getting the message "PC is not confgured for this software". I tried copying all MS Office folders and files to the C:\\programs folder and receive the same message. (I'm hoping that I didn't copy all that was required.)

On trying to reinstall MS Office from the original discs I get message something like "cannot find prequalifying software". During this attempt I am asked to point to the external drive where the software can be found, i.e. the external drive, and even though all files from the previous build are there, they still cannot be 'found'.

What can I do to reinstall MS Office?

Am I now condemned into buying the full product because I started with an OEM provided MSOffice?.

Hope someone can advise.

Thank you.