OS burning

I have a HP off the shelf system. I bought it last summer and it's decent. I just built a crappy p3 500mhz system and my friend gave me a copy of his win2k that he said he ripped off of his computer. Now I have XP on the HP and it came with no OS disk. Instead they put a 5 GB partion on the HD and that's where the OS is. It takes up almost all of the 5GB. I know it's not that big. I used a utility in the computer to burn a copy of that partition and it took 8 CD's. How do I just burn it to the 1 CD so I can put it on my other system. I have both computers going through a router and figure it will be easier to network them together if I'm running XP on both. Please help. I know enough to impress some but also enough to know what not to try on my own. Thanks for the help.

 

You can't. If you installed it and got it to boot on the 500MHz comp, XP would detect a serious hardware change and require activation on the 500MHz comp, which won't happen without a another license/procuct key. Your friend's Win2K copy will be problematic at best, and most likely will crash because it's configured for his computer and has different drivers, etc. than yours. Also, both ideas are illegal. Here are some good deals on Windows OS's http://majorgeeks.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=186 You can get a legal copy of XP Pro w/SP2 for under $65, XP Home for under $50.

 

So far the win2k has been working fine. Last time I had the computer up it was running off of the same win2k for about a year with no problems, other than the whole thing being slow. Same question though about burning it. Even if I just want a backup copy for the original "good" computer, I can't just burn it somehow? I just think it's stupid if you can't. What if the HD crashes for some weird reason. Then what am I to do for a OS. Then I would have to go out and buy one even though I originally had one on the computer when I bought it. Freakin corporate butholes doing anything to screw you over just to make a buck.