re-install XP Pro

[Marge]

Need to know what I can & can't do.....

I bought a second hand HP D530 pc with XP Pro pre installed, XP
activated & genuine.

The machine was infected by virus, didn't have the time to play around
so wiped the drive and formated asuming it would be legal to reinstall
from my dell xp pro disk and enter the case sticker code.
Unfortunately the installed version from the dell disk will not
activate?

I asumed that because the case has authority sticker I would be able
to install from any xp pro disk legally?

Any info & suggestions would be much appreciated....

 

[Dave]

Need to know what I can & can't do.....

I bought a second hand HP D530 pc with XP Pro pre installed, XP
activated & genuine.

The machine was infected by virus, didn't have the time to play around
so wiped the drive and formated asuming it would be legal to reinstall
from my dell xp pro disk and enter the case sticker code.
Unfortunately the installed version from the dell disk will not
activate?

That's because it can only be activated on Dell computer systems. Normally,
you could change the product key. But if you install Windows from a Dell
disk, you could only change the product key to another Dell system. -Dave

 

[John Weiss]

I bought a second hand HP D530 pc with XP Pro pre installed, XP
activated & genuine.

The machine was infected by virus, didn't have the time to play around
so wiped the drive and formated asuming it would be legal to reinstall
from my dell xp pro disk and enter the case sticker code.
Unfortunately the installed version from the dell disk will not
activate?

I asumed that because the case has authority sticker I would be able
to install from any xp pro disk legally?

"Legally," IIRC an OEM edition is limited to a single machine, so you can't put
a Dell CD into your HP.

If you still have the HP license key, and are only using the Dell CD to install
the base OS, you may be able to do that providing you can find all the
appropriate HP drivers you need (chipset, gfx, network...) from the HP web site.
I don't know if there are any Dell-induced issues with their own CD, though; you
might be better off finding someone with an HP CD they'll let you borrow or
copy...

 

[Matt]

Need to know what I can & can't do.....

I bought a second hand HP D530 pc with XP Pro pre installed, XP
activated & genuine.

The machine was infected by virus, didn't have the time to play around
so wiped the drive and formated asuming it would be legal to reinstall
from my dell xp pro disk and enter the case sticker code.
Unfortunately the installed version from the dell disk will not
activate?

I asumed that because the case has authority sticker I would be able
to install from any xp pro disk legally?

Any info & suggestions would be much appreciated....

If the machine is not more than say four years old, probably there is
hidden installation partition on the drive, to be used instead of an XP
installation CD.