Oem and Hardware Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jay
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J

Jay

what if I wanted to change my hard drive...I bought this cheap pc about six
monthes ago and it has OEM WinXP Home on it. I want to get one of those 7200
rpm hard drives and a new AGP video card for games...can I take this hard
drive out and put the new one in and use the oem cds to start the new drive?
or is a new hard drive like a new PC?
I appreciate your time
Jay
 
Jay said:
what if I wanted to change my hard drive...I bought this cheap pc
about six monthes ago and it has OEM WinXP Home on it. I want to get
one of those 7200 rpm hard drives and a new AGP video card for
games...can I take this hard drive out and put the new one in and use
the oem cds to start the new drive? or is a new hard drive like a new
PC?
Click to expand...

Technically - if you buy a new hard drive and just do a clean install, it
shouldn't be a problem. A few components shouldn't affect your computer....
With just a hard drive change, you may be able to use a utility you can get
from the hard drive manufacturer to transfer the whole OS to the new hard
drive and never miss a beat - however it is still suggested you backup
everything important to you first!
 
Definetely use the software that comes with your drive to image your old
drive to the new one. Note that these two minor changes will not change
your activation state for XP and if you use the method above, it
shouldn't even ask to activate. Do note that you can't use the old hard
drive in a different computer if you use the same copy of XP on the new
harddrive. Activation for the old harddrive will cause problems.
 
If you have EOM CDs there is no problem doing what you want,
the OEM CD will look for the BIOS on the mobo. The hard
drive is standard. I would install the new hard drive as
master on the primary and leave the original in place, but
disconnected. Do the fresh install using the OEM CD and
then install the new video card after the system has been
installed. Then just reconnect the old drive, making sure
it is set to be slave and transfer whatever files you want
on the new fast drive, You may need to take ownership of
the drive http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421


--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.


| what if I wanted to change my hard drive...I bought this
cheap pc about six
| monthes ago and it has OEM WinXP Home on it. I want to get
one of those 7200
| rpm hard drives and a new AGP video card for games...can I
take this hard
| drive out and put the new one in and use the oem cds to
start the new drive?
| or is a new hard drive like a new PC?
| I appreciate your time
| Jay
|
|
 
-----Original Message-----
what if I wanted to change my hard drive...I bought this cheap pc about six
monthes ago and it has OEM WinXP Home on it. I want to get one of those 7200
rpm hard drives and a new AGP video card for games...can I take this hard
drive out and put the new one in and use the oem cds to start the new drive?
or is a new hard drive like a new PC?
I appreciate your time
Jay

No it is not. What you could do is either use a program
Click to expand...
like Norton Ghost to clone the old drive to the new or
simply continue using the old drive, leave all the system
files on that drive and put all your games and
applications on the new drive.
 
Using Norton Ghost in this situation may or may not work since it is a
different harddrive and may not be recognized properly. It probably
wouldn't be a problem, but the software that comes with your hard drive
such as MaxBlast is much better suited for this.

Even upgrading certain system components doesn't really change the OEM
status as I feel it is more tied into motherboard/chipset. I have a
Compaq Persario motherboard in a totally different case with completely
different components than it came with and it works just fine as it
didn't go over the limit of changes allowed to the system before the
activation status was changed.

Also, usually you just call in, let them know you changed something, and
they give you the code. That is if the online activation doesn't work ;)
 
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