Adding extra HD and worried about XP licence accepting it

[Guest]

I bought a new 200 gig HD and would like to intall in my PC. I am running XP
Home on Intel Celeron 2.6, 512 Ram, 80 gig HD. This system I bought about
two years ago with XP pre-installed (from MDG in Canada)

I have been reading up on OEM licences, which I have, and now am worried
that maybe if I add this HD to my sytem MS will reject my licence. How can I
tell for sure? I wanted to put the OS on the new drive and use the 80 as
backup.

I copied some info I was reading on below which I got from
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm


OEM versions
Restrictions of specific license types may limit the foregoing. OEM versions
of Windows XP are licensed together with the hardware with which they are
purchased, as an entity, and such a copy may not be moved to a different
computer. Also, other specific license types (e.g., Academic licenses) are
handled in different ways. These aren’t a WPA issue per se, but rather an
issue of the license for that purchase, and therefore outside the scope of
this discussion of WPA.

There are two versions of OEM Windows XP systems. One can be purchased
separately, with qualifying subsidiary hardware, and installed with that
hardware to an existing machine, to which it becomes bound. The software may
be reinstalled and reactivated indefinitely as with a retail system as long
as it is still on the original machine. It may not be transferred to a
different computer. It is activated as described above, but if it were
installed to hardware seen as not substantially the same, the activation
would be refused as falling outside the license.


---the above is what I believe I have, can I add extra hardware and still
use my Win XP or will I have to purchase XP once again? (motherboard, bios,
etc has not been changed) Thanks for any help.

 

[HeeroYuy]

I bought a new 200 gig HD and would like to intall in my PC. I am running
XP
Home on Intel Celeron 2.6, 512 Ram, 80 gig HD. This system I bought about
two years ago with XP pre-installed (from MDG in Canada)

I have been reading up on OEM licences, which I have, and now am worried
that maybe if I add this HD to my sytem MS will reject my licence. How
can I
tell for sure? I wanted to put the OS on the new drive and use the 80 as
backup.

I copied some info I was reading on below which I got from
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

I had a hard drive with my OS go bad. I bought a new drive and used my old
slave (now the primary) to load XP on and my new drive as a slave. I too
have an OEM version, and it wasn't bothered by the change one bit. You
should worry about it when you need a new motherboard and/or processor, and
even then, all it takes is a call to Microsoft to explain what happened.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

No, that will be fine. A new hard drive is only a minor change in the
hardware hash used by activation. You may want to consider using the FAST
wizard to backup the existing system for later import into the new
installation. Information:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the help.

On another note, I had thought of leaving the OS on the 80 gig as is, but I
thought that maybe since I had this chance for a clean install it might be a
better thing to do and since the 200 gig HD is newer I thought it would be
the best one to instal the OS to. I have been having issues with my system
that I cannot undo - I am not PC literate enough to fiddle with the registry.

After a clean install on the 200 gig can I later hook up the 80 gig as a
slave so that I could transfer My Documents and all other files? (windows
would still be installed on the 80, meaning at that point Windows would be
installed on two drives) I guess my point is - Is there a problem having two
drives with the same OS installed? Or should I make sure that I am unhooked
from the internet to transfer these files and then format my extra drive?

I don't have a problem backing up my files to CD, but I also have two
daughters with their own accounts and did not really want to have to backup
all their stuff and I thought that maybe just being able to copy their files
to the new drive would be the easiest. (PS I have had this new HD for over a
week now, still in it's original box and wrappings, afraid I might mess up my
system)

Thanks for all the help,

Debbie

 

[HeeroYuy]

Thanks for the help.

On another note, I had thought of leaving the OS on the 80 gig as is, but
I
thought that maybe since I had this chance for a clean install it might be
a
better thing to do and since the 200 gig HD is newer I thought it would be
the best one to instal the OS to. I have been having issues with my system
that I cannot undo - I am not PC literate enough to fiddle with the
registry.

After a clean install on the 200 gig can I later hook up the 80 gig as a
slave so that I could transfer My Documents and all other files? (windows
would still be installed on the 80, meaning at that point Windows would be
installed on two drives) I guess my point is - Is there a problem having
two
drives with the same OS installed? Or should I make sure that I am
unhooked
from the internet to transfer these files and then format my extra drive?

I don't have a problem backing up my files to CD, but I also have two
daughters with their own accounts and did not really want to have to
backup
all their stuff and I thought that maybe just being able to copy their
files
to the new drive would be the easiest. (PS I have had this new HD for
over a
week now, still in it's original box and wrappings, afraid I might mess up
my
system)

Thanks for all the help,

Debbie

Actually, I've made it a habit to use the larger hard drive as the slave.
First, because it's too much hassle to migrate to the new drive. Second,
because if you have large files, it's better to keep them on a large drive
independent from the Windows files in case you need to reformat. And last,
you can put the backup of Windows on the second drive without affecting the
storage space of the larger drive much. If your 80GB drive is working, you
might as well keep Windows on it until the drive dies.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, the older drive seems to work fine but I have a few bugs, not sure
what is the cause -- no viruses, malware, adware, etc. Also I haven't
upgraded to SP2, afraid of losing data or total access to PC.

Also, how would I move all existing non system files to the larger drive and
leave the 80 gig for only the OS?

Thanks, Debbie

 

[deebs]

My own opinion is that there is a lot to be gained from keeping user
data separate and distinct from OS and program files.

But two instances of active installations of the same version of Windows
sounds like a recipe to unpredictability IMHO.

The OS, page file and programs on 80 GB disk sounds fine IMO

User data (My Documents for 3 people for example) on 200 GB drive sounds
neat.

Inert backups (eg not active installations of an operating system) on
user data disk seems reasonable.

One advantage is that if ever the OS happens to meet a difficulty at
least the user data can be somehow be retreived

 

[HeeroYuy]

Thanks, the older drive seems to work fine but I have a few bugs, not sure
what is the cause -- no viruses, malware, adware, etc. Also I haven't
upgraded to SP2, afraid of losing data or total access to PC.

Also, how would I move all existing non system files to the larger drive
and
leave the 80 gig for only the OS?

Thanks, Debbie

If you have programs already installed on your C: drive, then it's best to
leave them be. The files I'm talking about are saved e-mails, user created
documents, avi's and mp3's. That simply requires the ol' cut and paste
proceedure.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I bought a new 200 gig HD and would like to intall in my PC. I am running
XP
Home on Intel Celeron 2.6, 512 Ram, 80 gig HD. This system I bought about
two years ago with XP pre-installed (from MDG in Canada)

I have been reading up on OEM licences, which I have, and now am worried
that maybe if I add this HD to my sytem MS will reject my licence. How
can I
tell for sure? I wanted to put the OS on the new drive and use the 80 as
backup.

I copied some info I was reading on below which I got from
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm


OEM versions
Restrictions of specific license types may limit the foregoing. OEM
versions
of Windows XP are licensed together with the hardware with which they are
purchased, as an entity, and such a copy may not be moved to a different
computer. Also, other specific license types (e.g., Academic licenses) are
handled in different ways. These aren't a WPA issue per se, but rather an
issue of the license for that purchase, and therefore outside the scope of
this discussion of WPA.

There are two versions of OEM Windows XP systems. One can be purchased
separately, with qualifying subsidiary hardware, and installed with that
hardware to an existing machine, to which it becomes bound. The software
may
be reinstalled and reactivated indefinitely as with a retail system as
long
as it is still on the original machine. It may not be transferred to a
different computer. It is activated as described above, but if it were
installed to hardware seen as not substantially the same, the activation
would be refused as falling outside the license.


---the above is what I believe I have, can I add extra hardware and still
use my Win XP or will I have to purchase XP once again? (motherboard,
bios,
etc has not been changed) Thanks for any help.

It is unlikely that changing a hard drive would cause re-activation. Even if
it does re-activation itself rarely causes problems.

Most hard drives come with software that will clone your old drive to the
new one. If it doesn't come with the drive then most manufacturers have it
available for download. You will get many recommendations from others about
partitioning, which drive is best for your OS etc. Only you can decide what
works for you. I usually recommend using the newest drive for the OS and
programs. It is usually the fastest drive.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

Can I simply cut and copy the "My Documents" and "Shared Documents" folders
etc. to the new hard drive? Would Windows know where to look for them or is
that just asking for trouble? Everthing aside from System and Program files
are stored under the My Documents folders for each of the users.

 

[HeeroYuy]

Can I simply cut and copy the "My Documents" and "Shared Documents"
folders
etc. to the new hard drive? Would Windows know where to look for them or
is
that just asking for trouble? Everthing aside from System and Program
files
are stored under the My Documents folders for each of the users.

Don't cut the folders themselves, just the files in them. You can always
create new folders to house your files. Moving the folders themselves would
require you to modify the registry, as the start menu and several other
Windows utilities need to know where the My Documents and Shared Documents
folders are.

 

[deebs]

Don't cut the folders themselves, just the files in them. You can always
create new folders to house your files. Moving the folders themselves would
require you to modify the registry, as the start menu and several other
Windows utilities need to know where the My Documents and Shared Documents
folders are.

It's a tricky one in the sense that it may be very easy to do and
equally easy not to do correctly, especially if there are 3 separate
users and what access rights and permissions may be in place.

First advice before doing any changes of this magnitude is always:
backups and, if data are critical, another backup just in case.

Create a new destination folder in the new drive
Move all the stuff across (it's so very neat and handy and helpful if
ALL the data are in My Documents)

For example, right click on My Documents and read properties

(I too needed help on this and received great help and pointers from a
few on this forum, and did so quite easily after reading the write-ups
and links)

 

[Kerry Brown]

You can quite easily copy the files but it is even easier to use the Files
and Settings Transfer Wizard. It wil ensure the approriate file permissions
are set, transfer email and favourites and much more. Log in as each user
and use the FAST wizard to save each user's data. Save them in an easy to
find folder like C:\Transfer. Make sure each user has their own folder like
C:\Transfer\User1 etc. Install the new drive as the master and the old drive
as the slave. Install Windows on the new drive. Create all the needed users.
Log in as each user in turn and run the FAST wizard to import the files and
settings for that user. You may have to take ownership of the files on the
old drive first. Look in the Windows Help and Support from the Start menu
for how to use the FAST wizard. Look at the following link for how to take
ownership of files.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421

Kerry