XP Home Reinstall and Product Key

I need to reinstall a fresh copy of XP Home on my son's laptop due to problems with it hanging. He does not know where the CD's for his laptop are. I do have a copy of XP Home from my daughter's PC.

My question is...can I use her CD to install XP Home but use the Product Key from the sticker on my son's laptop?

Thanks

 

If your son's laptop and daughter's PC have the same OS and same license (OEM or retail), you can.

 

Yes, they are both XP Home--I have two sets of product keys.

What do you mean by license?

If you mean some kind of certificate of authenticity, then yes I do. One from the box for my daughter's copy and the other is a sticker on the bottom of his Toshiba laptop.

 

Was your daughter's copy a retail or OEM copy? Did it come with her PC(OEM), supplied by the manufacturer, or did you buy it separately(Retail)? If her copy was an OEM version, it will work. You can't use an OEM product key to activate a retail version of the OS and vice versa.

 

Oh darn. Daughter's is retail; son's is OEM. Thanks.

 

Since you can't do the install how about posting the problem with your sons computer, maybe someone here can assist you that way..
Is it an error message he is getting?

 

Hey guys, thanks for all the help and information regarding the OEM and retail versions of XP Home.

But something new has popped up which I need some assistance figuring out.

I did load successfully the retail version onto my son's laptop. But here is the rub...his laptop has a 28GB HDD and after loading just XP home and Mozilla's Firefox browser, I've used up 21GB of space on the drive. That leaves only 7GB of free space. Does that sound right?

I wonder if I need to do something else like using a zero fill utility to wipe the whole disk clean or just reinstall and go thru the reformat options.

Thanks in advance.

Blaine

 

I don't think Windows XP home takes up that much of the hard disk and I know Firefox dosnt for a fact. Firefox takes up to atleast 20MB of hard disk space so basically Windows XP Home is taking up atleast 20GB i don't think windows vista is that big.

there is something wrong there.

 

The space doesn't sound right. Check you C: drive in My Computer do you have more than one WINDOWS directory? A full initial install of XP takes roughly between 4-6gb. FF is negligible.

I wouldn't do a zero fill. I've seen too many threads where the machine doesn't recognize the HD after a zero fill. Not a good situation on a laptop. A full format is sufficient for cleaning up a drive in your situation.

 

Thanks for the responses and advice which confirms my suspicions. I was really surprised when I saw only 7GB remaining free. I've done a few installs and never saw this much eaten up by only two apps. I will do a full format and while at it partition the drive.

Thanks again,

Blaine

 

You'll probably figure this part out but you first partition a HD and then format the partitions.

With a 28gb HD you probably only want one partition. XP should have 15-20gb minimum to give it breathing space (so a 28GB partition would be about right).

So the scenario would be using the XP installation disk. Delete existing partitions, create a new partition and then do a full format of the new partition with the NTFS file system.

******
Is this an older laptop? 28GB Hd is an odd number. I just want to make sure that if you have more than one partition that you would not be deleting a manufacturer's recovery partition. Before doing the fresh install use the existing XP and right-click My Computer and select Manage. In the right pane select Disk Management. How big is Disk 0? and how many partitions are in the graph to the right? If only one partition then you are good to go ahead and do a reinstall.

 

OK time out!!

What is the make and model of the laptop you are working on, and what are the system specifications? (i.e., processor, installed memory, and an accurate validation of the HD's size)


When you did the re-install, did you delete the old partition???

 

Make is Toshiba Satellite 1135-S1552.

CPU is Pentium 4M 2.0Ghz.
Installed RAM: Two entries--1.20GB and 498MB of RAM.

Total HD: 27.9GB

Update: As part of a fresh install, I did a total format of the hard drive. Everything went OK and the system now boots fine. I checked the HD properties and found: used 1.68G; free 26.2G.

I will press on with installing SP2 update and more applications.

Thanks again for the assistance and expertise.

Blaine

 

Yeah, that's an older laptop. Not the prettiest belle at the Ball, but she's a good dancer. Especially since somone popped that 1GB stick in with the OEM 256MB stick.

AND, you're welcome!

 

Thanks Mekanic. I appreciate your help and comments, especially the part about the laptop not being pretty but good performer. :-D . I believe my son feels that way also. Oh, I was mistaken about the RAM. Upon rechecking SYSYEM, I noted that there is only 498MB so it must be only one 512 stick of RAM. Currently, it seems a bit slow and maybe another 512 stick will improve the performance a bit more.

Thanks again,

Blaine

 

Update:

My son's Toshiba has two sticks of Hynix 256MB RAM. The sticker reads:
PC 2100S-25330
HYMD232M646A6-H AA
256MB DDR 266 MHz CL 2.5

The Toshiba specs say the laptop is expandable to 1024MB. This increase in RAM will likely help performance AND extend life of the laptop.

Can anyone decipher the second line...beginning with HYMD...and give me a new part number that would apply to a 512MB stick? With that, I will look to purchase the additional RAM.

Thanks in advance.

Blaine

 

Go to http://www.crucial.com/
Down load their software and run it. Once that's done it will invoke your browser - and list model and specs of the ram required.
Cheers :wave

 

Thanks SikVik,

I went and tried the crucial app. It confirmed what the specs stated. I found two sticks on ebay so just awaiting their arrival. Thanks again, I'll use that scanner for my other systems.

Blaine

 

HYMD is the brand of memory. Hynix to be exact.

 

Thanks Mekanic...I had figured that part but was wondering how to come up with a part number representing PC2100 512MB etc. Be that as it may, I have already found some RAM for my son's laptop. Hopefully, they will fit and work.

Blaine

 

Good luck, and let us know how everything goes.
It's nice to finsh a thread with a solution!