Using A Single XP Disc On Multiple Computers

**westy159** · January 10, 2007, 10:50 AM

My father runs a business. One of his customers was given a laptop which he gave to his rather young son, except the laptop does not work. Being the PC guy in the house the laptop eventually found its way to me. Its rather old, a Compaq Presario 2100 running Windows XP. The problem is that after you have logged on an error reporting that 'windows explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close' pops up. After you have clicked either 'send error report' or 'do not send report' windows explorer closes (so all you see is the plain desktop for a few seconds) and comes back. A few seconds later the error reappears so its stuck in a loop.

The only way out of it I can see is a format. I have a Dell XP disc that came with my PC, ive formated my own PC twice, on both occasions XP did not need to be 'activated'. Will the case be the same for the laptop if i use the disc? The laptop did not come with any discs of its own. Though its own version of XP is a Compaq edit.

**Freddie** · January 10, 2007, 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by westy159

My father runs a business. One of his customers was given a laptop which he gave to his rather young son, except the laptop does not work. Being the PC guy in the house the laptop eventually found its way to me. Its rather old, a Compaq Presario 2100 running Windows XP. The problem is that after you have logged on an error reporting that 'windows explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close' pops up. After you have clicked either 'send error report' or 'do not send report' windows explorer closes (so all you see is the plain desktop for a few seconds) and comes back. A few seconds later the error reappears so its stuck in a loop.

The only way out of it I can see is a format. I have a Dell XP disc that came with my PC, ive formated my own PC twice, on both occasions XP did not need to be 'activated'. Will the case be the same for the laptop if i use the disc? The laptop did not come with any discs of its own. Though its own version of XP is a Compaq edit.

Well I don't think the Dell disk's will work in the Toshiba laptop, you could try it but frankly I don't hold up much hope. Maybe someone else here has tried this an they can post their thoughts.

Going back to the original problem, have you tried booting up in safe mode? Turn the laptop on and press F8. Even if that works though. all it's only going to show one of the .dll's is corrupted and needs to be reinstalled, in which case you need an XP disc anyway. But it should give you enough to back up any data that needs saving.

Do you have an old copy Windows 98 or another OS you could install on it?

**imb39** · January 10, 2007, 11:52 AM

The Dell won't work. I am pretty sure it will only work on the computer that you originally bought with the disk.

**invictus** · January 10, 2007, 11:58 AM

Well in the case of my laptop (Gateway) when i formatted i decided to use my retail windows xp sp2 cd so i would not have to upgrade so much. To my own amazement it did not work. So i doubt yours will but you can try, good luck. -Leon

**westy159** · January 10, 2007, 12:48 PM

Even in safe mode the problem occurs, i tried doing a system restore back to the beginning but the farthest I could go was 17 December 06.

I guess you are right and that the Dell disc will not work, i do have a Windows 98 Boot Disk (a floppy). Does that include the operating system?

**Freddie** · January 10, 2007, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by westy159

I guess you are right and that the Dell disc will not work, i do have a Windows 98 Boot Disk (a floppy). Does that include the operating system?

Windows 98 OS on a floppy disk? No chance, sorry.

**invictus** · January 10, 2007, 01:10 PM

The boot discs were merely to get it going, nothing more. Well im sure it had more but not in the sense you are referring to. -Leon

**Freddie** · January 10, 2007, 01:22 PM

Brain Wave Alert

Buy an adaptor lead!

Take the HD out the laptop and plug it into your Dell desktop using an adaptor lead , install your Dell XP disc onto the laptop hard drive, when it's done take it out and put it back into your laptop. It may need some fresh drivers from the Toshiba website but hay, it just work since you said it doesn't need activating.

**invictus** · January 10, 2007, 01:24 PM

Well wouldnt it install everything for the desktop thus rendering the laptop nearly useless? I think its more on the fact that laptops tend to need specific discs or their discs contain certain formats to allow the disc to install windows on the machine. -Leon

**Freddie** · January 10, 2007, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by invictus

Well wouldnt it install everything for the desktop thus rendering the laptop nearly useless? I think its more on the fact that laptops tend to need specific discs or their discs contain certain formats to allow the disc to install windows on the machine. -Leon

I've installed OS's on laptops with the same disc I have used for desktops, it shouldn't be a problem. All I will say is that he may need to get the correct dirvers from the Toshiba website for certain parts such as sound and ethernet.

**zYn** · January 10, 2007, 05:51 PM

You cannot install Windows XP with another computer using the other computers hdd. Windows doesn't like getting switched to an new motherboard with everything different. Tried it. Doesn't work. Period.

Install Linux. Then you can actually install it with the desktop and the swap the hdd back to the laptop...

**SweetDreamz** · January 10, 2007, 07:39 PM

Shouldn't there be a recovery disc of some sort that came with the Compaq? Ask for that.

If not, just buy a WinXP disc...they're pretty cheap nowaday... and install that after a reformat.

**Spiff** · January 10, 2007, 08:37 PM

How about the repair function for windows? Dont really trust it myself as i prefer a clean install but it might help you out here.

**allthesedamnnamesaretaken** · January 10, 2007, 11:34 PM

i did a fresh install of xp (oem) and made an image of it onto another disk as a backup. i then restored the image to another hd and swapped it with my main hd and it booted up fine. all it did was tell me some hardware changed and that it will have to change a few settings and reboot. after the reboot it worked like new.

i then put the cloned hd into another computer and to my surprise it booted up just fine on this as well. this computer had a totally different mobo, cpu, memory type, everything. it was 4 years older than my current computer. it loaded up windows, asked to be restarted again, and proceed to work as normal.

i'm sure if you have a oem or retail version of xp install cd, then it should work on any desktop or laptop you care to install it on. if not, try to do what i did and clone an image to the laptop hd (you may need an usb enclosure to plug it into your desktop) and then just plug it back into the laptop