XP without installing...

[CatMan]

The mastberboot record has failed on my old hard drive and no commands are fixing it and i just got a random blue screen due to the hard drive failing.I was wondering if I can get windows xp on the new hard drive without installing it. its the the exact same model and size. so is there like some way to "mirror" the drives like a raid and then go back to using them seperatly? or any dos command or program or anything! reason i ask is i lost the xp cd so i have no way of reinstalling. though my uncle has xp pro as last resort. but he doesnt like the idea of spending 200 dollars or whatever and letting me get it free, haha.

If you were wondering, i have that xp pro cd in and its booting off that it seems. but my uncle is gonna find out he doesnt have it in his room at some point!

Its only funny until somebody gets hurt, then its hilarious.

 

[peartree]

There's no reason at all to scrap your old drive or install a new one as the boot drive (unless you want an excuse to spend the money and get a new drive). What you need to do is to install the Windows XP Recovery Console and use the commands to repair the drive without reinstalling XP. You can find the Knowledgebase article <A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=307654" target="_new">http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=307654</A>.

<font color=green>****</font color=green> Never Assume <font color=red>ANYTHING</font color=red> <font color=green>****</font color=green>