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General discussion

New Hard Drive

Sep 16, 2005 9:33AM PDT

A friend of mine, has been checking out my HP Compaq and he says that my hard drive is fried. He took my hard drive out and exchanged it for another which worked fine. Now it looks like I either need a new computer or a new hard drive. I don't really want a new computer; I love this one. But my friend says that if I get a new hard drive I will have to replace my OS with another Windows XP. Is this true? Why can't I use my replacement disc's on a new hard drive?

Discussion is locked

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friend is wrong
Sep 19, 2005 2:09PM PDT

You can replace a hard drive and install your original copy of Windows XP on the new hard drive. All you need is the original Windows XP installation disk (or system restore disks from the computer mfg).

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Backup software
Sep 19, 2005 8:38PM PDT

Hi, also if you have such problem appears rather often, it better to use hard drive backup software.
Create full image of HDD and keep it on DVD/CD or external HDD (in your case it will be very usefull).
And whenever you need, you could easily and fast restore system as ity was before.
Really recommend, I always use this way to be sure that all my important data is safe (including OS and all apps).