Clever way to reinstall XP?

[philaw]

I've had my PC for 18 months, and it's got a bit slower. I should probably reinstall windows, but can't find all of my CDs and am nervous about making things worse, because it does still work.

I have a new hard drive in the post, and was wondering if I could unplug my old one and plug this one in. Would it then be recognised as the master drive and let me simply put the windows CD in and install it? If it works better than my old drive, I could copy files from the old one and reformat it. If it doesn't, I could blank it and just keep going as I was.

Does that sound realistic, or are there complications I haven't spotted?

 

[veedubfreak]

As long as you still have your cd key you can reinstall XP using any oem disk.

 

[KSoD]

Hello,

Can always create your own disc. In our Read First Sticky is this topic:

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-install-xp-without-xp-cd-156805/

Cheers,
Mak

 

[thaingsokheng]

hello,
you should not also do the reinstall, you can make it faster by going through this link
http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-keep-winxp-really-fast-stable-156582/
i had followed it and it works find for me.
thank,
heng

 

[forrestcupp]

Definitely try what thaingsokheng said first. You probably don't really need to reinstall.

But if you end up needing to reinstall, what you said will work. I've done it before. You just need your new drive to be the master drive that the system will boot to.

 

[ste2425]

and to be on the safe side why not take your hard drive with the currently installed windows out completally when u install the new one? itl still work when you plug it back it back in.