Installation of Vista on external drive using XP

hi all,
just been away for a while and back with a problem with installation issue.
I have a acer vista laptop that I did lost the key, and it did get currupted due to it been expired and now it wont even bootup as well as the the usb ports not working.
but I have come across the key and want to install the vista on the hard drive but do not know how to use an xp laptop to install it externally using a casing and usb cable.
please could body give me a full step by step way to resolving this.
thanks and God bless
pythas
 
Connecting the hard drive of the Vista laptop to the Xp machine will not work installing Vista for the laptop. You simply cannot do that unless I am not understanding your post or something. The hard drive you install the operating system on must be connected to the computer it will reside in and the computer must be powered up. When installing the operating system Windows employs a 10 point check list before it will activate. Different components account for different values. If there is a significant difference in the total value than what existed when the product key was originally assigned to the computer in question it will not activate. In those circumstances you can sometimes call MS and get them to activate it but, it's not guaranteed. In what I perceive you to be asking the point value would be zero and you would certainly not get it activated by calling since the calculation of the points would be based on the Xp machine and would not match anything originally assigned to the key.

Edit: You should check your laptop for a recovery option. Most Acer laptops do have one. Alternatively, if your laptop has a cd/dvd rom you could try a Vista repair disc or press F8 on start up and see if the option to repair the computer is available. Be advised when you run startup repair it often takes two or three runs to get positive results.
 
Connecting the hard drive of the Vista laptop to the Xp machine will not work installing Vista for the laptop. You simply cannot do that unless I am not understanding your post or something. The hard drive you install the operating system on must be connected to the computer it will reside in and the computer must be powered up. When installing the operating system Windows employs a 10 point check list before it will activate. Different components account for different values. If there is a significant difference in the total value than what existed when the product key was originally assigned to the computer in question it will not activate. In those circumstances you can sometimes call MS and get them to activate it but, it's not guaranteed. In what I perceive you to be asking the point value would be zero and you would certainly not get it activated by calling since the calculation of the points would be based on the Xp machine and would not match anything originally assigned to the key.

Edit: You should check your laptop for a recovery option. Most Acer laptops do have one. Alternatively, if your laptop has a cd/dvd rom you could try a Vista repair disc or press F8 on start up and see if the option to repair the computer is available. Be advised when you run startup repair it often takes two or three runs to get positive results.
hi,
thanks for your response, am not that a tech guy on computers only thought its possible to install a system externally if the original machine is not responding to the usb or disk drive.
thanks
 
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