reisntalling XP own REG KEY w/ different XP Media

[komachi]

A newbie Question.

I have a huge problem reinstalling XP on my laptop.

My laptop came with drive image back up system. It means they partitioned my drive and they made a small 1.5g D: / partition to put a windows XP image or mirror.

Anytime I wanted to reinstall XP I could use drive image application for that task.

My laptop did not come with windows XP media. Basically I only have a mirror in my laptop.

Drive image is not working and seems like I have a virus, I need to reinstall, but drive image is not working... VFLOPY.SYS error and error8 fake floppy driver could not be found appears when booting up my laptop.

I send a request to my laptop's costumer service and they say that I have to send my laptop to be RE-IMAGED at a cost of $150. Plus S&H other 50 bucks

I can get an XP OEM new for $100 or use my brother’s computer XP media to do a clean install BUT USING MY REGISTRY KEY. Will it work? If I use someone else’s media to reinstall but I use the product XP key that I have under my laptop it will work? Or the media has attached as well the registry key? And then I can make a back up copy for me? After all what we pay for is the key. Isn’t it?

Any ideas?

Thank you on this one.

[XtremeMaC]

u can use someone else's disk

afaik u'll encounter activation problems. I've done this with my home version and I had to call ms to activate. and i cannot automatically activate it anymore..

and for the record next time avoid shopping from that laptop company. it seems to me that they'r lame! I believe u have the right to ask for an original disk.

call them up and talk nicely

1 thing u can try; integrate sp1 or sp2 to that defected disk. and see if that solves the problem..