I recently had to replace my hard drive due to a complete electrical failer. i have my original XP PRO SP3 but i didn't write the number down and it was a long time ago. i have in stalle d the new hard drive but i know have this reminder to activate every time i start my pc.

Unfortunately serial numbers cannot be given on here due to possible copyright breaches. If the OEM windows was originally given with your computer then it should already have the serial number in it or with the disc. Also I would check if your computer came with a recovery partition on your hard drive for a reinstall of windows as that would stop any issues. If you don't know how to do this then add a comment about the make and model of your computer and i'll get back to you.

Try the ultimate boot CD, there you can use may hard drive diagnostic utilities, perhaps Test Disk will suit your needs, here;s a link

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html


Hope that helps

Christopher

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) The latest version of Business Plan Pro 11.0 will install and run in Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3).
If you're installing the software from a CD, you may not have the latest version and could encounter a message during the installation that indicates you need Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed. Downloading the latest installer from our website will resolve that problem.
Resolution
Take the following steps to download the latest installer and use it to install our software:

1. Click the link below to go to the Software Download page of our website:
   http://www.paloalto.com/download_software
2. Enter your Business Plan Pro 11.0 serial number and the email address you use for registrations, then click Go
3. Accept the License Agreement and click the "Continue to Downloads" button.
4. Once you reach the downloads page, you should be prompted to either Open or Save the installer file. Choose to Save this file to the Desktop of the computer.
5. Once the download completes, choose to Open or Run the file to install the latest version of the software on your computer.

Once you reinstall Quickbooks, you should be able to copy your QB files to the My Documents folder then open that file in quickbooks

Most likely you have a SATA drive which windows is not detecting. Restart the setup and press F6. You will need to use another system to download the SATA drivers and save to a disk. Then when prompted you can insert the disk. You can also upgrade to XP professional which will almost always recognize the SATA drives. Good Luck.

I think due to Battery your laptop should not be slow . But as per the RAM in your laptop you need to add some more RAM with WinXP and SP3 with the type of Configuration it will be slow with or without power.

Please post the missing devices Hardware ID.
What Service Pack level the XP is on? Currently Service Pack 3 is out for slipstreaming to create a bootable XP SP3 CD.

Do you still have the original recovery disc for the PC? If so, put that into the disc drive then boot the computer. It can help you either save the installed operating system or create a new one if there is a serious problem.

This could also be due to a hard disk drive failure, in which case you'd be needing to get a new hard disk. Most of the time however, just a file allocation table messes up during a power down, or some other random problem happened and just caused a simple error on the drive. I'd definitely find that recovery disc. If nothing else, you can use google to search for recovery boot disks that you can download and burn to a CD using a different computer. They can help as well.

clean install ............. floppy... fdisk deleting all partitions first.... and then making a partition of the whole disk.. then formatting.... then do the install and of course ntfs.... and see how that goes

Robert

I'm afraid, you can't install XP home over XP Pro; it could be done the other way around. you'll have to  backup your important files then format your drive and restart from scratch.

if you have 2 partitionon in your HD e.g C: and D:
you can copy all your important files in the D:\ drive and just format and install XP home in the C:\ drive.