As was stated elsewhere in this thread, even if you *could* have
retrieved a key from the hard drive (using a program like Belarc
Advisor), it might not have been the one you want anyway (because there
are different kinds of product keys for XP, depending on the OEM and the
method they use to preinstall XP). But as long as you don't tell us the
make and model of the laptop, we can't really help you out with that.
A new copy of Windows XP on eBay goes for about $40.
Are you sure? I just entered the following terms:
"xp home" "sealed"
I see it offered for $84 (the Buy it Now price, which includes
shipping). Perhaps certain auction items are at $40 currently? Then
again, you might be talking about a Dell CD (don't know -- you STILL
haven't told us the make and model of this laptop!!!). Forty dollars
seems over-priced to me _for that_ because the main reason for the high
cost of a CD is the license.
Also, if someone wanted to purchase XP Home new, they might as well use
a retailer like Newegg IMO. (Again, this is for the generic OEM version,
not for the Dell-branded version!)
Also, whenever one deals with Ebay sellers, one never knows what they're
buying. In another thread started a few days ago, a poster informed us
he bought an XP installation CD from an Ebay seller and is reporting
that Microsoft is flagging his system as non-genuine. This could be a
coincidence, but I wouldn't take such a chance.
Instead of taking your chances with Ebay sellers, you might as well
first try to download the .iso for free and determine it to be clean
(like you recounted in your "F6 Drivers" thread in the Dell newsgroup).
I would *never* recommend this to a newb! But you seem to know what
you're doing. You could also run an MD5 hash and Google it to see if
others have reported that particular .iso as clean (or otherwise). Then
again, this would work only with something like a Dell-branded XP
installation CD (which contains a generic "golden master" product key --
the very same one that Belarc Advisor would report, BTW). The reason:
You don't know what the Product Key is!!!