tributehub

I have installed a new SATA drive to my pc and I want to install my copy of XP to it as the old hard drive is getting a bit tired. However I only have a recovery disk that has XP on it and at the moment I cannot for the life of me install it onto the new HD.
Is it possible to use a recovery disk to install XP onto the new drive or do I have to purchase a full copy of XP to do it? Also if I do have to purchase XP can I use an OEM copy that is about ?100 cheaper than the normal Home edition?

btw I will probably get Vista but only when the support for XP stops!  ;D

Don't get Vista.

Just jump straight to whatever Microsoft bring out to replace THAT.  It can't be any worse.

Buy a Mac, wait for Leopard!

Now that sounds like a much better plan.

Do you know how much wild cats cost to keep?

If you'll all get of your soap boxes for a minute, the man asked a question.

No, you can't install XP from the recovery disk. You could buy an OEM copy, depending on how legal you want to be. It certainly won't show up as illegal., but it should only be sold with a new PC or the components from which to build one. An OEM licence is not transferable either, i.e. it is for one PC only.

Not sure why people have a downer on Vista. It does need a monster of a PC to run it properly and there is poor legacy support for old hardware, so I wouldn't try to install it on an old machine, but that said, I'd never go back to XP.