Laptop Question

[PlasbianX]

Alright, my friend has an HP Pavilion Entertainment laptop with Windows XP Media Center edition on it. The install is screwed to hell and back with hundreds of viruses and spyware. To top that off, it blue screens every 5 mins or so cause the registry is now borked. She doesn't have the original install CD for the laptop. My question is, is there anyway that I can use a normal windows XP CD on the laptop? I plan on completely formatting her PC and installing using my CD, but I just wanna know if its possible to use that on a laptop or do I need a special CD made for the laptop.

[Zeph]

If you have any instalation disk you can use it. Just be sure to write zeros or random patterns to the hard drive first. The standard windows reformatting leaves behind key parts of the hard drive as an anti-piracy measure. The only thing you need is the CD key sticker on the laptop.

[beele]

First look up all the drivers you will be needing to get it back to work (manufacturer site, laptop site). Set your bios to boot from the CD, and do a full hdd format (not a quick format), now install XP, with the key on your laptop (should be on some sticker). Once XP is installed, install all the needed drivers (make sure you download the newest versions).

Hope this is of any help.

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