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General discussion

2000 to XP

May 15, 2005 2:56AM PDT

My HP laptop hit the deck and has been destroyed. [getting over it], so my question is:

Can I use the original XP pro disc, HP LAPTOP, to upgrade my older Dell desktop to XP pro from it's current 2000 Pro? I mean I paid for and own the XP disc, so that part isn't an issue for me especially since I won't be using it on two machines. The question is will the HP [laptop]disc actually work as a install / reformatting tool for my desktop Dell?

Discussion is locked

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Um..........no, well...........no. LOL
May 15, 2005 3:12AM PDT

I theory, yes it can be done, but here's the thing, recovery disks are programmed and designed by the menufacturer with all of the extras be it UMWOS useless manufacturer waste of space (I'm trying to get that acronym to catch on can you tell? LOL) or drivers for the various devices installed in the laptop. It seems to me the last time I handled an HP the disks may have had a separate disk for the O/S only and I noticed this because I was impressed that they'd done that. If that was the case, then yes by all means, if the cd only contains the original O/S. You can see though that doing a ''manufacturers restore'' on the entire system will be disasterous. The restore program will try to install drivers for devices that aren't there, programs to run the devices that aren't there.... etc. Let me know what disks you have and their labels and we'll go from there. P.S. E-mail me with an e-mail address through the forum and we can discuss ways to properly accomplish your goal if you like. Happy

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XP OS on seperate CD
May 17, 2005 8:35AM PDT

Hey Platinum,

Sorry it took so long to get back. Yes in fact the OS CD is seperate onto itself. In fact at one point I had to reformat the laptop and the Os obviously went first and then I had to address some of the HP drivers off of other CDs, driver recovery CD, there is also an application recovery CD but Idon't recall using that one.....long answer.........

So...........this means I can indeed reformat my Dell desktop with the XP OS CD?

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No and unlikely.
May 15, 2005 3:15AM PDT

That HP XP CD is not a "bought and paid for" (in your definition) XP license such as you recieve in the full up retail Microsoft XP BOX.

This may cause some to burst into flames that 99% of the machines such as HP and other don't come with the full licensed OS but some other and other agreement.

"The question is will the HP [laptop]disc actually work as a install / reformatting tool for my desktop Dell?"

It is highly unlikely this will work.

Bob