Episode #61
G’day Leo and the rest of the lab team. I own a now somewhat aging HP Pavillion desktop PC which came with XP pre-loaded. Problem is that I started but never finished making a set of XP install disks at the time I purchased it and now if I try to create a set it tells me it will start at disk 2. Having watched Call for Help for years and now the Lab, I want to re-install Windows to clean out all the crud that has accumulated on my machine and is obviously slowing it down. Is there a way I can legitimately do this? Or do I need to buy a new copy of XP? By the way I have also configured this machine to dual-boot Ubuntu which I love to mess around with and if it wasn’t for some of the Windows software that I have invested in, I’d probably just blow XP away and use Linux exclusively. Keep up the great work and I hope you might find the time to point me in the right direction with my re-install question. Regards Bruce
Bruce, Sydney, NSW
According to HP, only one set of recovery discs can be made due to Microsoft licensing requirements. In other words, you can’t start over. However, you can use anyone’s XP install disc with your serial number. If you can find a friend with an XP install disc go ahead and use that.