Reinstall WinXP without OEM disc

[Tetsuo1981]

Hi

I have been given an old Advent t9000 with WinXP Home installed but I would like to do a clean install of the OS. I do not have any of the install discs or recovery discs. All I have is the licence key sticker on the tower itself stating Windows XP Home Edition DSG Retail Limited. I can back up the drivers from the computer itself but I've been reading online and suspect that I can't just use any old XP Home disc with this licence key. What options do I have open to me?

 

[clutchc]

It would be far better to at least move to Win7, if not Win10 anyway. XP has no security update support from M$ anymore. That means it is TOTALLY vulnerable to attacks that steal your data, identity, etc.

 

[Tetsuo1981]

@clutchc I am going to use this machine for a MAME arcade cabinet, it is never going to be used for any personal data or ever be connected to the internet in any meaningful way so am not concerned about the risk of attack. Just want a clean install of the OS but do not have the original OEM disc

 

[clutchc]

@clutchc I am going to use this machine for a MAME arcade cabinet, it is never going to be used for any personal data or ever be connected to the internet in any meaningful way so am not concerned about the risk of attack. Just want a clean install of the OS but do not have the original OEM disc

OK, but that also means you will not have any of the 13 years worth of updates and all the service packs necessary to make it stable. But if you still want to go that route...

-Have you checked to see if there was a recovery partition for restoring the system to original condition? I'm not sure when OEMs started using them. But if you are sure the machine originally came with disks, there probably isn't a recovery partition.
-Another option might be to first make a disk image of the system so you can always return to the way it is now. Then pick up a used XP installation disk from someplace like ebay and use it to install the OS. Try the product key and see if it works.
-Is the Advent company still in business? Might want to try to contact them for disks. But I doubt they would still have any since there have been 4 MS OSs since then.