Suggestions where to buy XP cheap & reliable?

[bsoder52]

So the used hard drive I picked up is failing and it's time I bite the bullet and buy a new Hard Drive which means I need to buy a new OS.  I've looked at Best Buy, online, and Ebay.  Ebay has some XP with SP3 for around $65 bucks, but I'm seeing mixed reviews and don't want to buy a hacked version.   Looking for any suggestions as to where I can buy a new XP w/ SP3 at a reasonable price where I don't have to worry about it failing or not being genuine and what not.

Thanks for any help!
Bsoder52

[IG-88]

What's the prob with a hacked or jacked version?

[orion]

You shouldn't need to buy another version of XP if you already have it installed on your machine. As long as you can retrieve the cd key, and you can borrow a friends legal copy of XP (same as what you have... home or pro, and it has to be the full version, and also not say an HP recovery disk or the like) you should be good to go. Google how to retrieve xp product key... This will give you a legal copy of XP as long as the copy on your old machine was legal. You can download SP3 in full for free from microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5B33B5A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en

[Encryptor]

Has your hard drive failed completely yet? If not you can use Casper XP to make a copy of your failing drive on a new drive. If you can do that you won't have to reinstall anything.

Encryptor

[orion]

Has your hard drive failed completely yet? If not you can use Casper XP to make a copy of your failing drive on a new drive. If you can do that you won't have to reinstall anything.

Encryptor

Never heard of that one before. Will that by any chance allow you to expand the partition... say if you copy a 200GB over to a 500GB drive and only want one partition?

[Encryptor]

Never heard of that one before. Will that by any chance allow you to expand the partition... say if you copy a 200GB over to a 500GB drive and only want one partition?

Yes I believe it will allow you to go to a bigger drive and use the whole drive as one partition.

http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/


Encryptor

[abispac]

The guys its trying to get a cheap solution, the best would be, borrow a friends xp cd, and install with you own key, or download a xp original untoched iso , burn and install with your own, key. If you dont have a legit xp cd key, i can get one for you for free, just pm me.

[Encryptor]

The guys its trying to get a cheap solution, the best would be, borrow a friends xp cd, and install with you own key, or download a xp original untoched iso , burn and install with your own, key. If you dont have a legit xp cd key, i can get one for you for free, just pm me.

Ok so what's the problem? He has to buy a new drive anyway and even if he bought Casper XP it's only $50 and as long as his current drive is still working he can use it to make an exact copy to the new drive. He was looking at buying a new copy of XP for $65 and this way is cheaper than that provided the old drive is still working. If it's not then he can do what you suggest and he'll have to re-install all his apps.

Encryptor

[abispac]

The guys its trying to get a cheap solution, the best would be, borrow a friends xp cd, and install with you own key, or download a xp original untoched iso , burn and install with your own, key. If you dont have a legit xp cd key, i can get one for you for free, just pm me.

Ok so what's the problem? He has to buy a new drive anyway and even if he bought Casper XP it's only $50 and as long as his current drive is still working he can use it to make an exact copy to the new drive. He was looking at buying a new copy of XP for $65 and this way is cheaper than that provided the old drive is still working. If it's not then he can do what you suggest and he'll have to re-install all his apps.

Encryptor

I think free, (as i offer him a free xp serial) its way cheaper then 65... 

[dafelandry]

Two Words : Windows Black