Reinstalling XP Home

[Doug]

My hard drive crashed and not backed up! I have upgraded
the OS since the orginal using Windows 95 upgrade, then
Windows 98 Upgrade and finally Windows XP Home upgrade.
Is there any way that I can restart without having to buy
a new Windows XP Home OS? If I am lucky, can I reuse my
current XP Home upgrade and still activate it using the
Product Key Activation?

 

[peter]

The last time I tried installing XP using an ME upgrade CD XP rejected it.But
for other people I know it has worked.
In my case I installed a bare minimu version of a previous OS and then Installed
XP....during the install I chose to format the drive which got rid of the old OS
and left just XP on the machine.Activation was no problem.This was an upgrade
version of XP.
So long as your XP is on only one machine you can legally use and activate it.
You could also try a repair operation of XP if you are installing onto the same
HD.You said it crashed but gave no details.
peter

 

[Doug]

Hard drive failed to boot up and made a clicking noise as
if the arm was trying to move but keep hitting the
spindle. I did not want to force the issue and possibly
damage the drive. So I plan on buying a new HD,
installing the OS and hooking the old HD chained off the
CD and seeing if it can be read and if so move the data
to the new HD.

 

[peter]

Yea..........new install needed repair installation would definitly not work.
Try the XP install first and if it rejects your upgrade CD then you'll need to
do it the long way.
Hope you still have that 95 upgrade CD...you might just need that too.
peter