What's my best course of action?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sean Burke
  • Start date Start date
S

Sean Burke

I bought a second hand computer that has a cracked version of Windows XP
installed. I have purchased a legitimate copy of XP and also a new
harddrive. My plan was to

Install 2nd drive as a slave
format this drive
remove old drive
make new drive master and install brand new copy XP
install old drive as a slave and copy over what can be copied to the new
drive and possibly format old drive at a latter date.

Is this the best route to follow or is there something else to conside.

I realize that I will have to install all the drivers and programs on the
new drive.

Thanks in advance.

Sean
 
sounds fine but not sure why you need to bother with the first step when you
install XP you have the option to format the drive!
Just make it master old one slave and do the install if it needs any drivers
you can point it back to either the windows or system32 folder on the old
drive!

Wayne
 
Sean said:
I bought a second hand computer that has a cracked version of Windows
XP installed. I have purchased a legitimate copy of XP and also a new
harddrive. My plan was to

Install 2nd drive as a slave
format this drive
remove old drive
make new drive master and install brand new copy XP
install old drive as a slave and copy over what can be copied to the
new drive and possibly format old drive at a latter date.

Is this the best route to follow or is there something else to
conside.

I realize that I will have to install all the drivers and programs on
the new drive.
Click to expand...

I would do it in this order to save a few steps:

make new drive master and install brand new copy XP, formatting during
install
install old drive as a slave and copy over what can be copied to the new
drive and possibly format old drive at a latter date
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP MCE
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.
 
one catch.....winxp installation will detect existing windows xp
installation directories, on any primary partition.
leave the drive with xp already on it disconnected until you're done the
first couple of steps of the new install.

not a problem everytime, but usually is if you're in a hurry, or eager to
get finished.
That's when I seem to "twist off the most bolts" ...ha
 
Why not just image/ghost the old drive onto the new, change the key to your
legit key using a key changer, and then wipe the old drive when done leaving
it for extra space.

No need to flatten, and no need to waste time reinstalling XP or the drivers
if it's already done. The legit version only differs in the fact that the
key is legitimate, the code is still the same identical code.

That's what I'd do.
 
Actually, you have no way of knowing that the legit version only differs
with regard to the key. There's no way to be certain there aren't other
issues, you don't know the source of the cracked version, there could be
file corruptions and other anomalies and if he starts having issues, it
might be more difficult to source as the problem might actually be the
cracked version.

Safest course to follow would be to dump the cracked version.
 
If he doesn't want to lose his apps and such, why not...

Do the key change and then just do an in-place reinstall (using the new
disk). After doing one this week I see that it appears to return the whole
shootin' match to it's original state, fresh off the disk, leaving all the
apps in place. He would have to go to the Windows Update site and download
SP1 and all the other updates again, but that's a heckuva lot easier if
there's a whole bunch of apps and plug-ins to reinstall (which could take
all of one's free time for a week or three!).
 
I'm just saying, that down the road, if problems crop up, the user will have
no way of knowing if the problem is related to the cracked version
originally installed.

While there's no question there's more work involved in starting over and
having to reinstall everything at least it will rule out the original
cracked version as a potential cause of issues that may arise down the road.

Lose his apps? I assume you mean if he doesn't want to go to the trouble of
reinstalling his apps as they should only be lost from the hard drive in a
clean install, he still should have his setup disks to allow reinstalling
the applications. As to his data, that should be backed up anyway.
 
Ralph D. said:
If he doesn't want to lose his apps and such, why not...

Do the key change and then just do an in-place reinstall (using the new
disk). After doing one this week I see that it appears to return the whole
shootin' match to it's original state, fresh off the disk, leaving all the
apps in place. He would have to go to the Windows Update site and download
SP1 and all the other updates again, but that's a heckuva lot easier if
there's a whole bunch of apps and plug-ins to reinstall (which could take
all of one's free time for a week or three!).
Click to expand...
Aren't there "application movers" ?
There should be a route to go by such that he would install (freshly) his
legit XP on a brand new drive, hook up the older drive (with cracked XP and
apps) as slave/on another IDE channel, and transfer the apps to the new
installation ? I remember quarterdeck (later aqcuired by symantec, IIRC) had
something similar. don't know if it only worked within the windows
installation, from drive to drive, or also across installations.
 
There may be some out there, as I've seen a few over the years but haven't
checked lately. However, if he's going to do that he might as well just
install over the cracked version and change the key because an app mover
runs the same risk of bringing broken or corrupt code into the new setup as
installing over the cracked version.
 
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