Reinstalling Win XP on daughter's computer but don't have a disc

My daughter has a desktop PC, HP Pavilion a250n that her father gave her. I tried to make recovery CDs but it said I couldn't because they were already made. Her father doesn't have the CDs anymore.

I would like to reformat and reinstall the drive. Give it a fresh start.

I have a retail version of Win XP Pro, which is what is on her desktop as well. Could I use this to install on her PC if I change the product key to her product number?

One of the reasons I'm asking is it has a RAID drive, but she's never used it so we don't care if she loses it during a fresh install. Is there anything I need to do different since it has a RAID drive?

We don't care about losing the games and junk that comes on HP recovery discs, but maybe I'm better off ordering the recovery CDs so I get all the drivers for this computer. What drivers would I need before an install, video card, sound card, etc?

Any advice you can share would be appreciated.

Diane

 

Possibly, but probably not. The HP will likely have an OEM product key which shouldn't work with a retail copy of XP... maybe you got an OEM copy?? What does the COA on the retail copy say? If it is OEM, it should be labeled as such.

Windows XP setup discs don't often have the drivers for the RAID controller, and will require them to be able to write to the hard drives during setup. You'll have to put them on a floppy, and press F6 shortly after setup starts to copy them to the install.

 

Yes, I also have an OEM copy of Windows XP Pro I could use.

Where would I find the drivers for the RAID controller in order to copy?

Thanks very much for the advice.

Diane