OEM Cd Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jay
  • Start date Start date
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!
 
Greetings --

It depends primarily upon the specific type of OEM CD that you
have.

If you have one of the generic OEM CD provided by most small
systems builders, it shouldn't be a problem. If you have one of the
branded, BIOS-locked installation CDs provided by a reputable OEM,
such as Dell or Gateway, it also shouldn't be a problem. However, if
you only a proprietary OEM Recovery CD that contains a drive image,
rather than the real installation files, it may or may not work,
depending upon how the CD was designed. Some Recovery CDs are
designed to work _only_ upon the original hardware configuration (to
include hard drive size and the amount of RAM) that shipped from the
factory.

If you do have an OEM Recovery CD, it might be worth your while to
ask the PC manufacturer's tech support if the CVD will restore the
image onto a larger hard drive before spending any money.


Bruce Chambers
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