PLease help, this sounds odd but I need to downgrade

[tomesphotos]

Okay, heres the situation. I have an older HP Pavilion that had a bad cd rom reader in it. Well my hubby replaced it and I CANNOT TELL YOU WHY but instead of loading up the windows ME that goes with this computer he loaded up the operating system that goes with our sony viao, windows xp proffesional. Well of course we cant register it to both computers so we want to take it back off and install the windows me, but when we put the disk in an error says Sorry, this operatiog system is for HP Pavillian only. It's like when the xp was installes it whiped something important out that allowed it to use the older operating system. Well I was going to give this older hp computer to my daughter for xmas so I need to figure out how to do it quick. Of course this xp will oly work for 30 days without activation, but after the 30 days does it whipe itself clean from the system so I can install the windows me then or does it not work like that???? I am so confused. Yes I know this was a really stupid move but my hubby is as far from a computer technition as you can get so you'll have to forgive him. How can I get rid of the xp pro and install the windows me without paying a repair shop to do it?

 

[CrossCech]

What you need to do is put your xp cd in and reboot your pc. Press any key to boot to cd when it prompts you. Get to the place where you can delete the hard drive partition that you installed XP on previously. I think the sequence is D>>Enter>>L or something close to that to delete the partition. Once you delete it, hit F3 to quit and reboot. Remove the XP CD and put in your HP Pavilion CD and boot to it.

 

[mammikoura]

^^ that should work. If it doesn't, then I'd guess that you can't install anything from HP's cd because you probably deleted the recovery partition, so the setup sees that it's not there and think that you are trying to install windows to some other computer. But try what CrossCech said.

Of course this xp will oly work for 30 days without activation, but after the 30 days does it whipe itself clean from the system so I can install the windows me then or does it not work like that????

After 30 days win xp will still be there, but when you boot the computer, instead of going straight to windows it will pop up an activation window right after the log in screen. So you can't use it unless you activate it.

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

Okay, heres the situation. I have an older HP Pavilion that had a bad cd rom reader in it. Well my hubby replaced it and I CANNOT TELL YOU WHY but instead of loading up the windows ME that goes with this computer he loaded up the operating system that goes with our sony viao, windows xp proffesional. Well of course we cant register it to both computers so we want to take it back off and install the windows me, but when we put the disk in an error says Sorry, this operatiog system is for HP Pavillian only. It's like when the xp was installes it whiped something important out that allowed it to use the older operating system. Well I was going to give this older hp computer to my daughter for xmas so I need to figure out how to do it quick. Of course this xp will oly work for 30 days without activation, but after the 30 days does it whipe itself clean from the system so I can install the windows me then or does it not work like that???? I am so confused. Yes I know this was a really stupid move but my hubby is as far from a computer technition as you can get so you'll have to forgive him. How can I get rid of the xp pro and install the windows me without paying a repair shop to do it?

I'll give you a hint, you can register quite a few times with the same CD key for XP Home / Pro.

I have gotten about 5 times a key, and if you go over you just need to phone microsoft

 

[CrossCech]

I'll give you a hint, you can register quite a few times with the same CD key for XP Home / Pro.

I have gotten about 5 times a key, and if you go over you just need to phone microsoft

Disappointing to see encouragement of what is considered an illegal use of license keys, by a "guru" on CF no less. Registering a key on a pc you've reloaded several times is one thing (of course this is legal), registering a key on 2 or more pc's at the same time is another. I'm not condemning the suggester, but I dont believe CF condones the encouragement of this activity.

Though what you suggest can be done, albeit illegally & only until MS catches on that the key is in use on 2 pc's (and they will eventually), this particular poster did not ask how to circumvent the activation issue, but rather how to do what is legally correct in her situation.