tech questions..... re: upgrades

[Sharon]

We have been working on PCs for many years and just had a client argue this
point for 45 MINUTES! He insisted that these following scenarios are ones
that he had encountered and were "do-able". Would some of you wonderful
techies give me some input on the 2 following statements as to if they are
"do-able" - as he says? Shouldn't matter, but this is dealing with a Dell
Inspiron 5000 laptop.

Thanks!!!

1) If you UPGRADE from W98 to WXP home or professional, and your hard drive
crashes later, an you reinstall the XP UPGRADEon a new hard drive - without
reinstalling W98 OS first or having the W98 CD?

2) Windows ME system OEM Dell, the hard drive crashes and you install a new
hard drive... can you install an UPGRADE of WXP with ONLY a recovery CD from
Dell?

THANKS!!!

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Sharon;
1. If an Upgrade CD is used, qualifying media such as Window 98 will
be needed for at least a few seconds.
The full version CD does not require an qualifying media.
Perhaps they bought and used a full version for the upgrade...so it
worked OK
Then on reinstall, of course the full version will not ask for
qualifying media.
Whether you have installed earlier on another hard drive is not
relevant.
There is no attempt to verify anything outside the computer during the
part of the upgrade process qualifying media is required and the new
hard drive also has none of the previous data.

2. I think some or all of Dell Restore CDs will work as qualifying
media.
It depends on how the CD is set up by the manufacturer.
Many OEMs use an image, in which case the necessary files can not be
located preventing its use as qualifying media.
Most OEM restore CDs will not work because of this.