New hard drive what do I need?

[mtmmatt]

Hello,
My hard drive on my windows xp professional computer recently crashed. I seeked help in the hardware section on techspot and figured out I had to buy a new hard drive. So I went out and bought a 500gb hard drive which is a big upgrade from the default 80 that it came with. Unfortunately I dont have any xp disk. Fortunately I have a sticker on the side of my computer with my old xp pro product key. It says Windows XP Professional OEM Software then it has the product key. Is there any way to get widows xp back onto my pc with the new hard drive with my old product key.

P.s. I have some hp xp recovery disks because my family has my hp pc's with xp but this computer isnt hp would that put xp back on it?

 

[St1ckM4n]

This has been mentioned on here quite a lot. Obtain a Windows XP Pro install disk from somewhere, use the OEM key. If it doesn't work, ring up Microsoft and they will 'unlock' it for you.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I looked online and found out that you need a OEM version of XP. I dont think the HP disc wont work, try it though. Usually, you can find Windows 7 ISOs online from reliable sources, but not for XP. If you can get hold of a Windows XP disc, you need to edit a file to make it install as a OEM version: http://www.thetechguide.com/howto/setuppini.html.
I got that link from this forum post: http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1021514-can-I-get-an-xp-pro-iso-anywhere/

 

[gbhall]

There is another trap you may fall into. If the old PC was running on an IDE drive (fat 40 or 80-pin connector, grey cable, one red wire), beware the new drive, at 500Gb size has to be SATA (small red connector and red cable). So .... do you have a SATA connector or not? If you do, does the bios support IDE mode on that channel? If it doesn't you will need to install SATA drivers during installation, which can be tricky - you need the right drivers for your motherboard on a floppy disk or USB drive.

Why the fuss?? XP never had native SATA drivers, they were/are always add-on for XP.