Hard Drive Upgrade On A "system Restore" License

[Dakota]

I have a 2 1/2 year old HP Pavilion, HP Home Edition, P4 2.5GHz machine. It came with a utility to burn "System Restore" CDs, plus a "System Restore" partition on the hard drive (drive D).

I want to upgrade to a larger C drive, but I do not want to start over with 2 1/2 year old OEM software.

I have tried using Norton Ghost to replicate the existing hard drive onto the new drive, but it will not boot, with Windows giving a license violation error (can't remember the exact message).

I emailed HP support and they say the only thing I can do is a System Restore on the new hard drive and start over with Windows updates, installing all of my software, etc.

I do not want to do that, since I have some applications that were activated by the vendor using their online activation service, but that vendor has now gone belly-up. This would mean I can't reload those apps. Also, given the amount of software I have loaded and upgraded over the years, recovering from the system restore will take several days, at least.

Question: Can I purchase a retail Windows XP Home Upgrade package and "upgrade" the copy of Windows on my new hard drive, and activate it using the license code from the retail box? Or, will the upgrade software in Windows refuse to upgrade an existing Xp Home system?

[bozodog]

Well, you can "ghost" all of your software and files. Do the sys restore and get the updates. Then install all the rest.

[Dakota]

Well, you can "ghost" all of your software and files. Do the sys restore and get the updates. Then install all the rest.

The system recovery starts over with a clean hard drive, as near as I can tell. IOW, after the system recovery, the only software and data on the hard drive will be what the machine came with out of the box. This is not the same as the Windows restore point. The recovery CDs contain a copy of the original hard drive image (sort of) and they restore the hard drive to that condition.

[tictoc5150]

Well, you can "ghost" all of your software and files. Do the sys restore and get the updates. Then install all the rest.

The system recovery starts over with a clean hard drive, as near as I can tell. IOW, after the system recovery, the only software and data on the hard drive will be what the machine came with out of the box. This is not the same as the Windows restore point. The recovery CDs contain a copy of the original hard drive image (sort of) and they restore the hard drive to that condition.

I've had to do this once, I think...IIRC, it was an identical situation to yours (including it being an HP)...most HDD manufacturers have drive cloning tools either shipped with the new drive or available for download, you might wanna look into that....worked for mine.

Without knowing the make of the new drive, I can't recommend or link to the utility but shouldn't be hard to find.

For instance, if the drive is a Maxtor.

Edited November 28, 2005 by tictoc5150

[Parrotgeek7]

Try cloning the entire drive to the new hdd with Acronis, the free version will work just fine. If its going in hte same machine, just on a bigger hdd you shouldn't have to reinstall anything.

[Dakota]

Thanks for the suggestions, folks.

OK, the target drive is an Hitachi drive, so I used their utility rather than Norton Ghost.

The system will now boot, and much of the software is functional, but there are still issues.

I had to reinstall Pinnacle Studio 9+ (a video editing suite), and after reinstall it is working fine so far.

iTunes will run, but does not use its icon for any shortcuts (desktop, taskbar, etc.), so its registry or something is corrupted?

Several other programs also seem to have lost their logo icons, like iTunes, but many are OK.

But the most serious issue is with Microsoft Office. I have Office 2003 Teacher - Student Edition installed. I bought this program at retail, so I have a full license original CD.

All office programs have lost their logo icons on the shortcuts, and all office documents have lost their logo icons. However, the file associations still work (i.e. double clicking on a .doc file will attempt to start Word).

But, when the application starts (Word for example), the windows installer runs, but never actually does anything. If I cancel the install, I get a couple of error dialog boxes, and then the application will start and apparently run normally.

When I try to do a repair install of Office using the original CD, the setup program from the CD refuses to run.

It would seem to me that something in Windows is very sick for the setup / installer for Office to not even run.

Apparently, something has been corrupted (possibly in the registry, or in the Windows Installer files or registry entries), but without an original Windows CD (remember, I have the infamous "system recovery" CDs from HP - and HP customer service is no help whatsoever - they just tell me to recover the system back to three years ago), I can't to a repair install of Windows.

Any help?

PS: I'm willing to actually buy the upgrade version of XP Home, but only if that would actually help. As fussy as Microsoft has become with upgrades and activations, I am concerned the upgrade version would merely tell me I can't upgrade from XP Home to XP Home and refuse to do anything.

My Windows installation is still recognized by the Microsoft Update Service as fully registered and legal (which is good, since it is fully registered and legal).

Edited December 5, 2005 by Dakota

[CurlingSteve]

iTunes will run, but does not use its icon for any shortcuts (desktop, taskbar, etc.), so its registry or something is corrupted?

Several other programs also seem to have lost their logo icons, like iTunes, but many are OK.

A few things to look at on this issue.

(1) Open Folder Options to the FIle Types tab and take a look at some of the extensions that are missing icons.

Highlight some that have the wrong icon and verify the extension is associated with the right program.

Also check if the right icon shows up in the Folder Options list.

If not, click the Advanced button.

Then click the Change Icon button and select the icon you want displayed.

Click OK. Click OK.

(2) If the proper icon appears in Folder Options, run TweakUI.

(You can download it from Microsoft Powertoys if you don't have a copy).

The Repair branch has a Rebuild Icons function that should clean up the icon cache in the Regstry for you.

(3) Check the program's main EXE file and see if it displays the proper icon.

One way to find the EXE file is to right-click the shortcut to it and select Properties.

Click the Find Target button and Explorer should open with the EXE file highlighted.

---------------

As far as the Office problem is concerned, the only thing I can think of at the moment is to uninstall then reinstall Office.

But that may be risky since you say the CD won't run a Repair install.

And since you've got functionality (once you get past those error boxes) you may want to wait and see if a better suggestion comes along.

What does the CD say when it refuses to run the Repair Installation?

Is it something about an SKUxyz.CAB file?

Edited December 5, 2005 by CurlingSteve