reinstalling win xp without a cd?

[wolfman18336]

Hey,
I just got a used laptop with windows xp on it. I don't want to have to spend money on buying a new os or use the configuration that came on the computer. Does anybody know of a free piece of software that will create an iso that I can burn from the build of windows that exists on the laptop.
Thanks,
Wolfman

[samureye]

Never heard of such a thing, even in passing, so it will be interesting to see if this can be done.

[shanef27]

If you have the Following Folder
C:\I386 or C:\Winnt\I386 or C:\Windows\I386

then you should be able to create a Windows XP CD

Check the following

http://www.howtohaven.com/system/cre...etupdisk.shtml

if you don't have the i386 folder then as far as I'm aware you would need to get the Windows CD.

Could borrow 1 from a Friend,
as long as you have the Valid license then this should be Fine.

[tehboris]

You need to get a copy of the XP CD boot loader which is illegal to redistribute. So no matter what this is impossible to do legally unless you have a copy of a Windows XP CD in which case this thread is redundant.

Just a note. Some institutions get multiple ms operating system licenses and only one cd to save money. So there could be a legal situation where there might not be a cd available. Things get lost easily where multiple people are involved. I know I learned that hard lesson years ago when I was working in a small retail store and gave someone the riot act about not having the cd. Later I learned about the site licenses and had much egg on my face. Ms will for a fee get you an extra cd. In the business environment, you may not have time to wait for it to be shipped. Life goes on.

If you buy a machine with mswindows on it, the seller is required to give you the original operating cd and or license with the unit. Otherwise they must wipe or remove the system of the Microsoft os. If they did not do that, you can contact Microsoft to resolve the issue. On newer brand name machines now they no longer have separate cd for mswindows. it is integrated as part of a system restore disk which can be a real pain. If you decide to replace the system with a different brand, you virtually can not transfer the license easily. I can see why someone might need or want the cd.

Where I used to work we pretty much had a site license for ms stuff. So we would oopy our orginal cd's to a network share. We would boot with a special dos network disk for a while. We eventually went to a pxe boot so that neither floppy or cd were needed. We also imaged one base machine (setup the way we wanted) with ghost.and added drivers to the image as needed. Microsoft has a tool to add the drivers to make that easier. We eventually had a generic image that could be imaged to most machines with the least of fuss. When I had to setup student labs with new machines, I would use ghost multicasting to do all the systems at once. If you get a new machine at home, I highly recommend making an image of the original setup so if you need to start over you are not out of luck. There are a ton of freeware programs to do this. (i.e. Clonezilla). Anyway most of the windows cd's are not protected. I usually make a legal back up of my original cd's for my personal use. Worst case scenario there are images available if you look for them. I will leave it up to your imagination there. In any case, you still need your license key to do an installation to do it the easy way on non oem machines. Oem is another can of worms.

P.S. Now that we use Linux instead of Microsoft operating systems, the original cd issue is no longer a problem. Open source rules!!!

Just borrow a CD of XP from someone and install it. As long as your laptop has an XP serial number, you're golden.

[md2389]

http://netsecurity.about.com/od/wind...twinxp0829.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/sel...XPPkuinst.aspx

I suggest you bookmark these two links. They may not apply to your situation, but its still useful knowledge.

As for using another XP CD, you may run into issues with your OEM license. You may just be better off calling the manufacturer of the laptop and asking for a restore disk. At the most, you might have to pay for shipping....and you can probably sweet talk them out of that if you're good enough.

[wolfman18336]

thanks, I thought there would be some form of legal problems because of it, but I think I will give that a go.

[oblitzerator]

If the version of Windows XP originally on the laptop was an OEM version, you can go ahead and reinstall the OS with an OEM disc. On the other hand, if it was a retail version then you need a retail version of the installation disc. Just make sure to grab the license key for the system.

I completely wiped and reinstalled a friend's system about 2 weeks ago using an OEM version of XP Home. Her Dell Inspiron did not contain a recovery partition nor did it come with recovery CDs. After installing XP with her system's legal key (the one found on the sticker) everything was fine. She had no problems activating, getting Windows Updates or even after installing WGA.