upgrade question

[TheLostOne]

Right so I blew it. This my first attempt at upgrading and i have run into a snag.

Basicly my old computer sony viao PCV-Rx742 1.4 Athlon, sis chipset is just barely hanging on, So I got a
gig k8sc-939, AMD 3000+, 512 corsair

My problem is that I was an idiot when I bought my computer and didn't get an xp disk, just the stupid restore stuff.

Anyway, when I went to hook up my old hard drive with the new hardware xp wouldn't load, because it didn't have the drivers for the new board, and sony won't let me update the drivers.
SO basicly I have to reinstall, so what are my options?

is there anyway to remove the old drivers and set up the new ones that a dyslexic can understand? Without buying a new copy of xp home edition.

a friend loaned me a copy of his xp pro. would that work? But I heard that if I install windows again I will lose all my files which is not something I can afford, so what can I do?

"Thats a pretty smile you got there boy."

 

[Geodave]

It's obviously a pain in the ass, but your best bet would be to set up your computer the old way, boot back into Windows and back up all your necessary files. From a legal standpoint you'd have to purchase a new copy of WinXP Home, as the one you were using before was technically only licensed for use on a Sony computer, preinstalled. It's probably against policy to give you any other advice, but from a technical standpoint, once you back up your old files and format your hard drive, it will accept any new operating system without problems.

If you could go into detail on which drivers didn't work, we might be able to give you more specific help; maybe you don't need to do all this work.