My laptop currentlly has a 60 gb hard disk....
i want to buy a 120gb hard disk...
i have windows xp home installed in my laptop (OEM, original, i have a product code sticked on my laptop and a recovery disk )

My question is.... If i am going to replace my hard disk to a 120 gb. How will i go about in installing my windows xp? will i just pop in the recovery disk and everything will be ok? I changed my HD so Microsoft might think that my product key was installed on another computer and mite render it as a pirated key...

Pardon for my ignorance... I just don't want to screw things up. Also i might do something wrong with the reactivation and void my product key.

Hope the techies could help me with this.
Thanks in advance.
Francis.

Just replace the harddisk and run the recovery disk...
Everything will revert to its initial state (when you 1st bought and open it). You dont need to activate windows xp anymore. Just be sure to recover your data 1st from the old HD before formating it. :)

oh ok... Thanks edlin. I thought it needs to be reactivated.

I'll place my old hard disk in a usb enclosure. =)

Have a nice day.

Francis

You might have to partition that new hard drive first since it's usually unpartitioned off the shelf. but that really depends on your backup software. HP/Compaq gives backup software that hardly needs you to do anything else other than swap discs now and then while DELL systems might need you to do the process manually...

Good luck!

your old activation key will not work, since there is a change in your hardware. You will have to call their toll free number to get a new activation key.

Same thing happened with my laptop when i changed its hard drive.

I suggest you use a disk imaging software such as Norton Ghost or Acronis Truimage to dump an image of your current hard drive to CD/DVD or an external hard drive.

Install the new hard drive and then restore the image. Simple and quick. No need for software re-installation. The software also will resize your partitions such that you get to use all of your disk space.

Hope this helps.

Hi Hans,

I think it depends on the laptop brand. My toshiba laptop's WinXP OS doesn't need to be activated when i 1st used it and even when i upgraded the harddisk and restore the OS using the recovery disk after a few months. :)


your old activation key will not work, since there is a change in your hardware. You will have to call their toll free number to get a new activation key.

Same thing happened with my laptop when i changed its hard drive.

Hi Hans,

I think it depends on the laptop brand. My toshiba laptop's WinXP OS doesn't need to be activated when i 1st used it and even when i upgraded the harddisk and restore the OS using the recovery disk after a few months. :)

Same with my Dell and Compaq.

I believe OEM XP cd's doesn't have the same restriction as the retail ones.

Same with my Dell and Compaq.

I believe OEM XP cd's doesn't have the same restriction as the retail ones.

Not unless you use them in another computer and run an upgrade, rather than a clean-install... Then the security pops up and asks you for the digits. :)

Not unless you use them in another computer and run an upgrade, rather than a clean-install... Then the security pops up and asks you for the digits. :)

Yep, so true.

To everybody...
Thanks... i was able to change my hdd last week. No problems at all.