Reinstall with broken DVD drive

And external DVD drive seems to have been the answer!
--
Thanks

PM


"sandy58" wrote:

> On Sep 30, 7:41 am, PM wrote:
> > A friend passed on a laptop to my daughter. had a legal OEM XP home edition
> > originally. Some "helpful" person has installed an illegal XP Pro edition.. i
> > want to revert to legal XP Home edition (I have disk). Problem is DVD drive
> > is not working.
> >
> > Is there any way to change the registration key to the home edition key
> > without a re-install. If a reinstall is necessary can I do it a) through a
> > DVD drive on another machine through my home network or b) can I copy the
> > disk onto a USB memory stick and boot from there to install?
> > --
> > Thanks
> >
> > PM
>
> A new DVD drive is around £20.
>

I borrowed and exterbnal DVD drive (though wasn't very hopeful) and it booted
off that like adream. XP reinstalled now - just trying to sort out drivers!

Thanks for your help

--
Thanks

PM


"Paul" wrote:

> PM wrote:
> > Unfortunatley there is noting written on the case. There is a sticker with a
> > place for model numer and serial number but nothing written. There is a
> > separate sticker with barcode on it and number N3453 210 19153. Below is the
> > system info that Igot form the machine that gives a model as M520. Checking
> > on the Gateway site it does at least match the picture
>
> OK, the M520 starts here. The document section was a disappointment,
> but I got lucky on the FAQ thing.
>
> http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Gateway/M520/3501916nv.shtml
>
> The Boot Menu on your computer is discussed here. Press F10 at boot,
> to see boot devices. If you had a USB device, it *might* show up
> in the list. For example, my 8GB OCZ Rally USB flash, shows up
> as "Rally" in this menu. So I can boot from it.
>
> http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Gateway/M520/3501915faq39.shtml
>
> The FAQ section makes no mention of what level of support there
> is for USB. So you'll just have to prep a USB flash stick,
> and give it a try, do the F10 thing, and see if it is in the menu.
>
> For example, if you use the HP USB formatter, it will prepare
> a bootable USB flash stick, and copies FreeDOS onto it. So you
> may be able to come up with something to use for a test.
>
> Even without any fancy prep on a USB flash, just plug it in and
> press F10, and see if it shows in the popup boot menu. If it
> does, then that makes it more worthwhile to work on making
> a bootable device.
>
> The HP Formatter works with Flash devices below 2GB in size. That
> is because it uses a FAT file system with a 2GB limit. I presume
> that is for best compatibility with older versions of DOS, that
> may not be able to handle FAT32. When I tested the HP software,
> it was getting pretty hard to find small flash sticks, and
> I got lucky and found a 1GB one for sale. The local stores
> don't seem to carry anything small any more, so I better not
> break my 1GB one.
>
> Paul
>