I have a slight computing problem… I’m trying to install my upgrade copy of Windows XP on a blank hard drive. Because it is the upgrade CD, it asks me to insert the installation disk from an older version of Windows for verification. However, I no longer have any of these disks… Is there still a way to do a clean install? Could there be any website where I can download a sort of pseudo-old-version-of-Windows installation disk just to fool the upgrade version into believing I still have a disk?
No helpful information for you, but I feel compelled to share.
Back in the ancient nineteen nineties, I did this with a Win95 upgrade disk. It searched the hard drive for a previous copy of Windows (I think all it was actually looking for was win.com or something similar) and when if didn’t find one, it prompted me on what to do next in the most bizarre way:
The older OS’s allowed you to “trick” the system into installing without the original cd’s. However Windows 2000, XP and others do require the original software to be installed or the cd from the original product. There is no real way to fake it out since it verifies the presence of a large number of files.
BMU is correct in that the older clean install workaround methods will not work with XP. There are, however, some newer (claimed) workarounds for clean installing an XP Upgrade.
your best bet is to probably find a copy of windows online, burn it to CD (or maybe it’ll also work if you copy it to the hard drive) and use that to verify the upgrade.
This isn’t necessarily illegal if the version you downloaded was a version you previously bought (you’re legally allowed to download backups of owned software) and also because you’re not actually installing it.
Something easier might be to just find a friend with a windows CD.
The situation is that a PC has Win 98 SE (qualifies for XP upgrade), but there is no installation disk. According to Microsoft, you have the option of doing a “new” install with the upgrade version, but I’m not clear if I can do a reformat during the process.
The computer’s hard drive seems to have some “issues”, so can I start the XP upgrade (verifying eligibility) and then reformat the hard drive before completing the installation?
