[Omer]

Hi there

I need some help , my computer crashed and i had to get new hard drive, a month before this i backed up my computer on external hard drive, i cannot find my XP CD, is there any way i can install XP pro from backup or can get my XP product key from that back up?

Regards

Omer

[Dave Hybrid]

Short answer, No and No.

You cannot install XP without a CD and your licence number is encrypted on your hard drive so you will need the paper licence key.

[Omer]

Thanks Dave
I have my laptop xp cd , can i use that to instal on new hard drive on desktop and restore computer backup on it ?

OR any way i can get xp key for my desktop from saved backup?

[hAvAAck]

if the external hard drive contains a COPY of your original hard drive you could pull it off
but if the back up is just of data and not the operating system, then no, there isn't a way.
as far as the xp cd, search the forum, it's been discussed so many times. I'm just going with a no this time. You don't have a valid key, you need a new key and that will come with a new CD

[SocialWarfare]

If the backup has an OS on it use this program RockXP
That will recover your lost xp cd key for you:)

[Omer]

Hi , thanks for help

please explain for me how do i get my new blank hard drive up and running so that i can restore back up from another external usb hard drive, back up has got xp backed up as well, its complete image of previous hard disk before it went bad.
Another possiblility i want to ask, if i use my laptop xp cd to get new hard disk running and then do restore from external hard drive containing backed up xp from old disk , would that restore my original xp from old disk back up, at the moment back up on external hard drive is saved as backup.bkf
Regards
omer

[Dave Hybrid]

You cannot restore XP from the backup on the external hard drive.

You need to use a XP CD to install Windows.

When you have the PC up and running, copy your data from the external hard drive back to the PC.

[Omer]

I did manage to bring my computer up and running and then did data restore from external hard drive (back up of old hard disk including xp pro), at the end system asked me to restart and after that computer never booted, its just going to screen where i can see several option to start xp like, normal, safe, command prompt etc, i have tried every option but no luck. eventually got fedup and had to do fresh xp installation from my laptop cd. Is there any way i can retrive my xp key from old hard disk backed up file now?

[its.sid]

No sorry don't you have any way of getting unless you still have the windows box on which the key is written or some other thing like that like a sticker etc, otherwise its all in loss .

[geforce]

I do not understand, if you have managed to get your system up and running. Why do need to restore you windows back now? Just restore the data you need. Isn't it? And without your original key, you won't be able to do that. I am sorry to inform you with this.