Re Installing Windows XP without a CD

[Kevin_M]

I have a 4 year old laptop that runs Windows XP Home. It has a
legitimate serial number that has been registered with Microsoft but it
did not come with an XP CD.

I tried copying the i386 directory to an external hard drive, but many
of the files didn't copy, I guess they are set to read only ?

I want to format the hard drive and get rid of some of the rubbish
installed on the machine over the years. How can I do this and reinstall
the version of Windows XP home I currently have a licence for ?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

How to replace lost, broken, or missing Microsoft software or hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326246/en-us

Clean Install Windows XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I have a 4 year old laptop that runs Windows XP Home. It has a
| legitimate serial number that has been registered with Microsoft but it
| did not come with an XP CD.
|
| I tried copying the i386 directory to an external hard drive, but many
| of the files didn't copy, I guess they are set to read only ?
|
| I want to format the hard drive and get rid of some of the rubbish
| installed on the machine over the years. How can I do this and reinstall
| the version of Windows XP home I currently have a licence for ?
|
| --
| Kevin

 

[DL]

Perhaps the laptop has a hidden recovery partition?
As winxp was supplied with the laptop you would have to contact the laptop
manu for recovery cd's if you dont have the recovery partition.
MS doesnt support OEM installations

 

[Quentin David Jones]

Well,
you can get boot floppies :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994
or
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...68-6e4f-471c-b455-bd5afee126d8&DisplayLang=en

Then, point it to the i386 folder on install...

Q.

 

[kkm]

First, thanks guys for your help so far.

From what I understand, MS won't help me as it is an OEM version of
windows, and boot floppies won't help me as the laptop doesn't have a
floppy disk !!

Way to go seems to be to set the i386 directory on the hard disc to
read/write and show hidden files, burn all the files to a i386 directory
on a CD-ROM that also has the boot floppy files on it, format the hard
drive and then boot up from the CD-ROM, change to the i386 directory and
run winnt.exe - Also might include other useful utilities on the CD-ROM
just in case. Obviously I need to be careful that the number of files in
both i386 directories is identical.

Has anyone been successful doing it this way ?

Thanks ..... Kevin.

Well,
you can get boot floppies :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994
or
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8fe6868-6e4f-471c-
b455-bd5afee126d8&DisplayLang=en

Then, point it to the i386 folder on install...

Q.