installing XP on new HD w/o CD / recovery disks?

[John Nasta]

I just got a refurbished Dell C610 laptop and I want to put a bigger hard
drive in it. The only catch is that I have XP Professional pre-installed and
the computer did not come with the XP Pro CD. Is there a way to make
recovery disks so that I can install the OS on the new HD? Any other
options? I really don't want to pay for another copy of XP Pro when I
already have a legal copy.

Thank you

 

[francyci]

I just got a refurbished Dell C610 laptop and I want to put a bigger hard
drive in it. The only catch is that I have XP Professional pre-installed and
the computer did not come with the XP Pro CD. Is there a way to make
recovery disks so that I can install the OS on the new HD? Any other
options? I really don't want to pay for another copy of XP Pro when I
already have a legal copy.

Thank you

I would suggest using a program like Symantec Ghost. Install both hard
drives into a computer and then use Ghost to copy the data from the old
HD to the new one. When you are done you just need to remove the old
system.

You could also create an image to another compture over the network and
then restore. Which is what you might have to do since you have a
laptop.

Freeware disk cloning/image utilities (http://www.partimage.org/) exist
but they are a bit more difficult to use.

 

[John Nasta]

I would suggest using a program like Symantec Ghost. Install both hard
drives into a computer and then use Ghost to copy the data from the old
HD to the new one. When you are done you just need to remove the old
system.

You could also create an image to another compture over the network and
then restore. Which is what you might have to do since you have a
laptop.

Freeware disk cloning/image utilities (http://www.partimage.org/) exist
but they are a bit more difficult to use.

Thanks. As you mentioned, I can't put two hard drives into a laptop. I do
have a desktop computer w/ enough free space, but the 2 machines are not
networked, and I don't know what's involved in that. I don't want to spend
as much money on ancillary stuff to make this happen as a new copy of XP
would cost, because that would amount to a waste of time for the same
eventual result. What I would like to do is to buy an external case for the
laptop HD (they're under $20), put the new HD in the external case, ghost
the old HD to the new one, then install the new HD, and put the old HD into
the external case to use as an external drive. Would that work?

JN

 

[Michael Stevens]

In
That would work and you can probably use the software provided with the new
hard drive. If you do not get a cd with the hard drive, you can usually
download it from the manufacturers web site.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
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