Velocity said:
Will it work, If i loaned someone my copy of XP sp2 to do a
reformat/repair,
but they have their own cd key? Or is my key burned into my cd someway so
this cannot be done?
His cd is XP sp1, but through the updates over the years, it tells him he
cant use it cause a newer version of windows is loaded.
This works *if* the two installs are exactly the same type. What I mean by
this is that the install type for, say, a Dell running XP Home is not the
same as for a retail copy of XP Home, the other key will not be valid and
the repair install will not proceed.
And, for example, if your CD is from a Dell and you want to use it on a
non-Dell system, there's a BIOS check and the CD will not permit Setup to
proceed.
CD keys are not burned onto the CD. For a given type and SP level, all CDs
are identical. nThe check comes later, at activation. But again, the key
type and the install type must match.
The best thing to do for your situation is to slipstream the existing CD to
take it up to SP2, then do the repair install, or whatever is necessary.
This is easy to do and also gives you a physical backup of the install CD.
There are a number of sites explaining slipsteaming, and a Google search on
"slipstream XP" will get you all you need to know. Here's one site:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp
The key, aside from copying the CD contents to hard disk, downloading the
250-meg SP2 update and applying it to the copied files, is extracting the
boot image and correctly setting the emulation and number of sectors loaded.
You'll see this on the page above. Some CD burning software doesn't have
the facility to properly adjust these critical settings, and so the
resulting CD won't boot. Check before you burn. You can extract the
boot image from the CD you already have. You may also find that burning
at lower speed helps.
HTH
-pk
