raja Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 Hi, I am currently using Windows XP Professional and would like to go back to Home Edition. This is because I have discovered that my Professional software is not legitimate and I have a valid disk for Home Edition. However, it appears that this is easier said than done. Do I have to reformat my harddrive in order to reinstall Home Edition?ThanksRaja Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dencandy Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 Hello raja. First, make sure you back up all your important data & difficult to replace software on external media such as CDs, DVDs or Flash/Pen drives.Do you have the software to make another partition and enough space on your hard drive? If you do, you can first re-install you copy of XP Home on the new partition. Then, when you've got that running smoothly and updated, you can delete the non-genuine copy of XP Professional (and the partition, if you wish).Others on the forum might have better ideas for re-installing the XP Home, but this should work OK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raja Posted June 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 Hi Dencandy,Thanks for taking the time to reply - much appreciated. I have an external storage drive that I might be able to partition and install Home Edition, but will that work? Doesn't the OS have to be on the 'C' drive?RajaHello raja. First, make sure you back up all your important data & difficult to replace software on external media such as CDs, DVDs or Flash/Pen drives.Do you have the software to make another partition and enough space on your hard drive? If you do, you can first re-install you copy of XP Home on the new partition. Then, when you've got that running smoothly and updated, you can delete the non-genuine copy of XP Professional (and the partition, if you wish).Others on the forum might have better ideas for re-installing the XP Home, but this should work OK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 I think that you need to save everything you would like to keep to your external and then a clean install as this should give you a better result. Also you can put XP on any free letter you chose but then have to change the letter on things you install so it is easier on C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dencandy Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 I'm sure rong is right (sorry about the pun!). I've never heard about anyone putting Windows on an external drive, so you'd be taking a big risk if you did try it. As rong says, better to put everything else on the external and keep the internal drive for your operating system.Please let the forum know how this whole matter goes, by the way, as feed-back is very useful to others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mateo1041 Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 Agreed. Save all your data (chat logs, email, My Documents, etc), reformat and reinstall your Home edition, then restore your data. It's the only clean way and will give you the best result. And you'll want to do this on your main C drive.FYI, I don't think MS will mind to much about the Pro thing as they technically don't even sell Windows XP anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dencandy Posted June 9, 2008 Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 FYI, I don't think MS will mind to much about the Pro thing as they technically don't even sell Windows XP anymore.Updates, hotfixes, service packs & many useful extra tools like TweakUI can still not be downloaded unless Microsoft recognises the OS as "genuine" (i.e. legal). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raja Posted June 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 Dencandy, Rong, and Mateo1041,I ended up re-installing Home Edition without formatting my harddrive. I put in the Home Edition disk and booted from it. Then I followed all the prompts. After the OS was installed, I noticed all my former drivers were gone, and especially my wireless internet drivers. I spent the last two days trying to sort it all out. I've used a friend's computer to download the appropriate drivers from Hewlett Packard's site and installed them. So far everything seems ok, except that I can no longer access my backups! Apparently, HP's Backup and Recovery application won't recognise backups done in in Professional unless Professional is installed?? What a pain... Anyway, at least I'm on the net and I can re-download many things I had, but I'll have to accept a lot of loss unless I can figure out how to access my backup data.RajaI'm sure rong is right (sorry about the pun!). I've never heard about anyone putting Windows on an external drive, so you'd be taking a big risk if you did try it. As rong says, better to put everything else on the external and keep the internal drive for your operating system.Please let the forum know how this whole matter goes, by the way, as feed-back is very useful to others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted June 9, 2008 Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 Is that HP backup application different from Windows backup (ntbackup.exe)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dencandy Posted June 9, 2008 Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 There are a number of recovery tools available (like Recova). But they're quite complex to use and time consuming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raja Posted June 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 Pat,Well, the HP Recovery and Backup application comes bundled with HP computers. I am not familiar with ntbackup (Norton Tools?) Raja.Is that HP backup application different from Windows backup (ntbackup.exe)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted June 9, 2008 Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 NTBackup details here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dencandy Posted June 9, 2008 Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 Raja, just a thought - it might work: have you tried using Search "back-up-file-name"? Enable Show Hidden & Systems Files, of course. It will save a lot of hassles if it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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