I recently built my first computer and am waiting for a few pieces to arrive. I have an old dell with an xp disc that does not work with my new computer. It says it is for use with dells which makes me think they are limiting my use of it some how. Anyone know how I can use this disc to install XP on my new computer/hard drive? I looked into mirror imaging the OS to my external hard drive but I would have to mirror image that to the new hard drive on my computer, is that ok to do? Any ideas on good programs to mirror image, preferably free?
No, i can tell you from experience that the Windows that come with your Dell system will not work well at all on the PC you built. I tried the same thing. And although it installed just fine on the PC i build i had all kinds of errors and conflicts, I finally had to wipe the hard drive clean and get a fresh copy of Windows XP Pro for the new system and then everything worked just fine. Now i can tell you that if you know the right sources that there are PLENTY of retail copies of Windows XP and XP Pro out there for free. I of course can not tell you where as it would be against the rules. Those copies could be installed on the new system. Then you may get a pop up when starting that tell you that it is not a genuin copy of Windows (everything would work fine except for updates which require th copy of Windows to pass validation which it would fail). That can also be easily fixes so that you never get that message and can do all updates to Windows. That or you will just have to buy a new copy. But trust me the copy that you got with you Dell will give you very bad results if you install it on your new PC.
Wish I had read this five minutes ago when I bought my new copy. I had a nice free copy but it didn't cross my mind to look for a patch. I just hope xp home works well with a dual core and 8800GT GPU.
