Re: changing hard drive

"BillDiec" <william.dieckmann@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:XwDXf.989$jf7.504@xxxxxxxxxxx
Hi
I am currently using a IDE hard drive going to upgrade to a SATA Hard
drive. Will I have to reregister XP when I move the files to the new
drive?

Activate. Windows Product Activation...

This depends partly on how you intend to move the files. You can move an
entire image of the drive with something like Norton Ghost, and the system
will hardly skip a beat. If you try to do it manually, you will find it
very difficult and probably mess it up. Note that simply dragging and
dropping files from one disk to the other will NOT transfer all the
essential system files.

The third option is to simply reinstall Windows on the new disk, then with
both disks installed and the new system running, copy over the data you want
to keep.

Product Activation will score your computer on a ten-point checklist, and
the main hard drive is only one of those points. Six of ten must be intact
for Windows to recognize your computer as being the same. If all you
replace is the hard drive, and you successfully copy (Ghost) the entire
system over byte for byte, you won't have to reactivate.

If you reinstall, the copy you have reinstalled won't know that its
registration deadline has passed; you're starting fresh at the beginning of
the 30-day grace period and you will be prompted to activate. Activation
will consist of one click and re-entering those numbers.

But you might be able to bypass that too, by copying the activation file
from the old installation to the new one. Here's something for you to read
before going on.

http://netsecurity.about.com/od/windowsxp/qt/aaqtwinxp0829.htm

Note that this process requires that the machine still passes the checklist.
It will work if you replace your hard drive and reinstall, but it won't work
if you install on a whole new machine, or if you replace a lot of major
components while you're doing it. This is what some other posters were
running into when they ghosted a disk from one computer and installed it on
another one. Windows says nope, this ain't my box, and won't start until you
get on the phone and activate.

Hope this helps.

--
P.


.

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