Unactivated Windows XP Home

[memory]

The same guy that had the problem with the memory gave me an old Dell Dimension 4100. It has Windows XP Home installed but he never activated it, not sure why. He does not have the cd for it or if he does, he has it installed on a different computer. Right now I can not do anything on it because the activation screens keeps coming up and if I don't activate it, it logs me off.

I have a Windows XP Pro cd that is not being used so I thought I maybe try to upgrade it without having to reinstall it. Well when it tries to boot from the cd, it says could not find NTLDR. Does Windows have to be activated before I can do anything else?

Am I going to have to call Microsoft and get a number from them And I guess they will charge full price too right?

 

[philbar71]

to reinstall, just boot off of cd and and format the HDD and be on your way

reinstalling has nothng to do with wether or not XP is activated. make sure you are booting off of the CD drive

 

[memory]

If possible, what I would like to do is get this installation of Windows running to make sure he doesn't need anything off of it.

Is it possible to use a Windows XP Pro cd and just upgrade it so that way I won't lose any information.

 

[carnageX]

Do you have the key that came with the XP machine by default? I know there's ways to get the key from an unbootable system as well (I made a post about it somewhere, was in a thread by Trotter).

Just so you know, if you have to reformat if you do an upgrade (you need an upgrade key; not OEM or retail key), you'll need that key anyway to reinstall I believe.

If you can get the key, then you'll just have to call M$ and have them reactivate it.

 

[memory]

No I do not have the key for it. The pc originally was made for Windows 2000. He put XP on there himself. I think he is using that XP cd on another computer.

Carnagex, are you saying that if I try to do an upgrade with a full version of XP Pro, that key will not work?

I still need the key even though I can get to the activation screen?

I got Windows up and running without having to reinstall or anything. I called Microsoft and got the number I needed from them, never even spoke to a person, took about 5 minutes. Should have done that in the first place.

On a different subject, how would I go about formatting the hard drive without putting Windows back on it? I may try to use it as a backup drive.

 

[KSoD]

Carnage is right. You can NOT use a full XP Pro CD to do a upgrade. That is why they have Upgrade Disks.

So no you can not use your XP Pro Disk to upgrade his home install.

You will still need a key to get past the activation screens cause XP will not allow you to install without a Serial.

To format it just use the XP CD, GParted or any other partition software. There are guides all over the internet on how to reinstall.

 

[memory]

I don't want to reinstall Windows, I just want to use this drive as a secondary storage drive.

 

[KSoD]

No you cant format without reinstalling. A format gets rid of ALL Data on the drive including Windows.

 

[memory]

That is want I want to do, get rid of everything and just use it as a storage drive.

 

[KSoD]

So again i point back to my first post that said:

To format it just use the XP CD, GParted or any other partition software.

Just take off the last sentence and it still holds true. Any partition software, any software we have listed in the READ FIRST topic under the Recommended Software for Certain tasks. Any of this will allow you to format the drive and get it empty and ready for use as a storage drive.