Windows XP product key
brucine Posted messages 24411 Registration date Status Membre Last intervention -
Hello everyone. I wanted to try to get my old PC running again under Windows XP, which crashed about 2 years ago. It was a tower PC given to me by a friend back then. The problem is, there’s no boot disk. I’ve tried the tutorials to create my bootable USB drive, but it’s not working. I might have downloaded the wrong file. According to the info on the tower, it’s Windows XP Home Edition Nettops. Could someone kindly help a novice in computing, please? I’d rate myself a 4 out of 10 on the computer expert scale. To be honest, it's more like a 3, but I don’t want to scare anyone… Also, the PC might have a worse issue than expected. Thank you.
7 réponses
good evening
to create a USB stick, you need to download xpen iso and then make a bootable USB with Rufus.
do you have the license key?
the edition of XP I'm not familiar with maybe it's pirated
see you later
we're not all geniuses, but we're working on it
google is your friend, don't forget it!
Hello
First operation: without writing anything to the hard drive, especially not formatting it, test the hard drive:
Boot from a live CD to start and test the hard drive to see if we can reuse it; a test with CrystalDiskinfo is clear, green or blue is good. Ideally, use the so-called Malekal live CD, which already has CrystalDiskinfo inside (it needs Windows to run, hence the Malekal live).
Free live Linux? or Malekal troubleshooting tool? on USB stick? or disk? we don't know yet.
https://www.malekal.com/malekal-live-cd-reparer-depanner-pc-windows/
Hello
Regarding licenses; Windows XP can no longer be activated via internet activation, as Microsoft servers no longer allow it.
You need to use workarounds: How to activate Windows XP - malekal.com
For the installation of XP, using a CD is better, especially if the PC is from the XP era.
Good evening everyone. It wasn't a pirated key. My friend got it from his job, and he realized he wasn't going to use it. He already had a laptop and didn't want to clutter up. The key is even labeled on it with a sticker. However, I didn't understand everything. Do I need to check first if the hard drive is not broken? Is that it?
Hello
The PC crashed suddenly, things haven't changed and we don’t know why, so we're starting from scratch: everything is on the hard drive, we’ll begin by testing it. Thanks to the information recorded in the SMART data of the hard drive, we'll know if it can continue to operate in the PC; or if it has already started losing a little or a lot of data, we need to put in another one and try to recover the lost data or start from scratch. For hardware failure, we risk not being able to recover anything; for software failure or a sudden power outage, we may have lost a bit of data but generally, we can reinstall on the same reformatted hard drive and then run recovery software on the backups.
To reboot the "new PC", we first need a good hard drive even if it's not new. Then we'll see if we can recover drivers from it and which OS can still run this PC, preferably free for the software; we can switch to other OSes than Windows if necessary for budget and feasibility reasons.
Linux Mint, lightweight and free, is often a good choice for reinstallation, but not immediately as we need a live software to diagnose the hard drive and see what’s going on, too.
We can perform several attempts with various tutorials before creating a bootable USB; there’s a discovery of the PC’s state happening at the same time.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that we have already suggested 2 different downloads ignoring the previous installation and a lot of hardware details.
Afterwards, I didn't have anything important on the hard drive. I used the PC more for printing. Drawings for my son or exercises when he was in the first and second grade.
I’m getting back to you about installing Windows 7 via the ISO. You’ll find cheap licenses at 1 euro, or most XP software works.
XP is 15 years old.
We’re not all geniuses, but we’re working on it.
Google is your friend, don’t forget it!
Hello,
The link to nettops doesn't make sense; as illustrated, it's one of the few versions minimized for use on low-cost Ultra NetBooks, which isn't the case here, and moreover, it's from the recovery partition of a particular model and therefore unusable.
As mentioned elsewhere, there are no longer any legal means to activate XP, so we take any ISO we want, but preferably SP3.
Besides tinkering with the BIOS and possible SATA drivers, the USB installation poses no problem except for the use of specific software here, or a very old version of Rufus (2.18, which is like Port-Salut).
https://lecrabeinfo.net/tutoriels/creer-une-cle-usb-dinstallation-de-windows-xp/
The last statement is incorrect, but it remains to be seen why one would want to run XP; aside from the software aspect, one will willingly get stuck with drivers attempting to install Windows 7 on an old XP machine or Versailles High School.
Hello community
I mentioned Ruffus because we refer to this software compatible with ISO files.
Running XP is not our compatibility.
.
Personally, I run Windows 11 and 10 (on an incompatible system after 1 year of trying to run Windows 11)
More to read from you, folks
Not all of us are geniuses, but we’re working on it.
Google is your friend, don't forget that!