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Reinstall winxp pro on new disk use diff drive let


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#1
stuteville

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I have a system with two hard drives, one 27G and one 100G the 27 G has windows 98 installed on it. It started having problems so we decided to upgrade to windows xp pro. We installed in on the 100G disk. Because it saw the windows 98 (which was becoming very problematic and we were only keeping as backup) it installed winxp pro to drive letter L (we have both disks partitioned with logical partitions). Now windows xp pro drive has had problems, we ended up with some bad spyware and then tried to change our antivirus and firewall software and have had conflict problems and Norton losing the fact I had administrator rights and it doesn't always start up on its own. So short version is I want to reinstall a clean installation of Windows XP Pro on a new disk we bought with 120G, but we want it to install to drive C. I am sure if I put in just this disk and format it will go ok, but I don't understand how the activation issue will work. I am assuming windows xp on't like it and will think I have installed on a second drive. I also want to keep the old one on "L" drive until I know I have the new drive up and running with protection. Iwant to install basic software, Drive Image for backup, firewall, antivirus, etc and basic software then do drive image so if I ever have to reload again, I can just load an image from this point and add data from data backups. I also want to make sure I have backed up all files I will need like email, etc, but I don't want to use the winxp utility because we changed user accounts and things and it messed up a lot of things. So will I have big problems doing this, and will I get a few days to call up Microsoft and reactivate and explain what I ahve done and isn't a second computer install? Does any of this make sense to anyone? We have kept old info on drives before as I am paranoid I will forget to backup the right files and like to option of retaining them in the future. I plan to copy info from the 27 G drive to the current 100G drive for archive purposes and then use the 100 G drive as a second drive in the system. I do a lot with digital photographs and like all the extra drive space. Any suggestions on how to reinstall and reactivate with least hassle? Sorry so long I am tired and I have something called fibromyalgia so it makes my thinking foggy sometimes.
Any suggestions and warnings would be appreciated.
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#2
DHooper

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The upgarde of Windows XP Pro, does that have Service Pack 2?? I would recommend that you do a complete install of Windows XP. Once you have posted back, if the upgarde has Service Pack 2 on it I can help you more. If it doesnt then I will help you slipstream Serivce Pack 2 to the upgrade disk. You will not have any problems reinstalling, and reactivation. I myself have reinstalled Windows XP Pro as much as 3 times in a week, due to testing, play with the reg, and have never had anyone show up at my door. Hope that this helps.
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#3
stuteville

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It doesn't have service pak 2 and we never upgraded to service pak 2 on our current install. It has been activated several weeks ago, so my fear is that it will detect major changes to the installation since the info is stored on the boot sector of disk we have it on and we will delete it and reinstall on a different disk. Not sure if we then get the 30 days to reactivate or what. Also I am not sure if I want to install Service Pak 2 I have heard so many mixed comments about it.
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#4
DHooper

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There is no reason not to upgrade to Service Pack 2. By not upgrading you are running a high risk of flaws that have been pactched for Service Pack 2. Now if you want to preform a fresh install make sure that you back up all the information from the hard drives to a CD-R/RW, or onto a network computer. When ever you do a install of Windows XP on a different partition, or on another harddrive you will always be promted to activate Windows. Do you have Dial-up or Broadband?? If you have broadband, then download Service Pack 2:

http://www.microsoft...&displaylang=en

If you have dial-up, then use this link to order a CD that has Service Pack 2:

http://www.microsoft...us/default.mspx

Hope that this helps.
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