Hi Vernon,
The only answer I can give you is a long winded one, but I hope when you
read it you will see that there is a couple of things that could/might happen
so that in the end you can decide which is the best way for you to go. Not
knowing how experienced you are with computers I shall try and keep it simple
for you and not baffle you with too much tech talk lolol.
My current Lady before we met bought an ACER computer ( grrrr ) She told me
of the troubles she was having with files being corrupted and just general
misbehaviour. I decided to run ( sfc scannow ) to see if it would repair any
corrupt windows files. This is when I found out that the O/S supplied by Acer
was the dreaded RELOAD. I explained to her that the only thing these discs
would do is a complete replacement of XP thus meaning we would have to start
from scratch.
Now with the reload discs when they are installed they set up two partitions
and both are FAT 32 and not NTFS ( NTFS is better ) So I called the Acer
hotline and I asked if a proper version of Windows could be loaded on instead
of the reload discs. The answer was "Yes sure no problem " so just for the
execise I decided to load my copy of Windows on. WRONG... I get a message at
disc bootup that "This is not an Acer Disc terminating installation" Being
stubborn and pigheaded I wasn't going to let that stop me so I took the hard
drive out put it into mine reformated it and placed it back into the Acer.
Tried to install my copy of XP again and got the same message ( major grrrr )
So this told me that part of the hard drive had Acer's code or whatever which
wasn't removed when formated. So I ended up reloading the Acer reload discs.
The corruption problems still continued after the clean fresh install so in
the end I bought her a new box as well as a proper copy of Windows and she
has never had a problem since.
Now after all of that here is what you can try. See if you have a mate who
has a proper copy of XP and see if you can at least start the installation,
make sure you back your data up onto discs first. If it wants to install stop
it and then run your reload discs so that you have a fresh copy of windows on
the machine. What you have just done is proven that you CAN run an upgrade
version of Windows and get rid of the reload problem. If it doesn't want to
install give thought to purchasing another hard drive ( this wont have the
manufacturers code written onto the hard drive ) then buy a full copy of
Vista and install it on the new hard drive.
I know that the last option will cost you money but it will save you heaps
of grief in the future.
I know that this is a long answer to your question, but one couldn't answer
just yes or no to it. As I said earlier I hate these RELOAD discs and I hate
the hassles that they cause people. I know they are done in the KISS ( Keep
it simple stupid ) mode but as time goes on and we learn more it becomes such
a pain in the butt.