daine said:
I keep getting error messages telling me to insert my XP
home CD-Rom disc. This came pre-installed on my computer
and I do not have a copy to install.
Then ask whomever built your pre-built computer as to how to create a CD
from whatever installation media they should have provided. The jobber
has to provide you with something to reinstall or restore the software
that they supposedly and legally provided to you; else, you never got a
legitimate copy of the software. Maybe the install for Windows is in a
hidden partition and you have to run some program to extract the files
from there to put onto a CD. In this case, the manual that came with
your computer should tell you how to do that or the computer builder
will have to tell you. That hidden partition may contain an installable
copy of the Windows install CD (albeit it may be a customized version)
or it may be just a drive image that wipes everything out in the hard
drive partition with the OS to restore the system to the same state as
when you got it. Because hard drives fail, you really need to find out
how to extract the install/restore copy of Windows onto a CD; otherwise,
when the hard drive fails or you do an [accidental] reformat (or a virus
does it for you), you'll have the hardware, no OS, and no way to install
the OS except by going out and buying a retail version of the OS.
You submitted a vague question because you never specified WHAT computer
you have and who built it, so answers will be just as vague.
