I am building a new computer from scratch but im trying to cut some corners to save cash. the computer im using now has 2 hard drives one is a normal drive C: while the other is a recovery drive D: that has the factory settings all the original drivers and windows xp sp1. would i be able to just transfer my hard drives over to the new computer and using the bios to boot from hard drive D: to instal the OS

Well, you probobaly just have one hard drive. D: is just the recovery partition. By creating multiple partitions, it looks like you have more than one hard drive installed under "My Computer". But I could be wrong, maybe you do have two hard drives installed. Either way, if it is a real recovery partition that loads the OS and all the drivers then it won't work for your new computer. The recovery partition will load all the drivers for your previous computer which are not compatible with your new computer. If you would like to use the same hard drive you can, but u need to do a clean install with an XP installation disk. This way, you can load the proper drivers once you have installed the OS.

You can't run HP software/recovery on a non-HP system. You're gonna have to come up with a *real* copy of XP & all the required drivers.

so there is no way i can take the OS from my old computer and put it in the new one? just gotta crack down and get a new one :S

You can try downloading all of the new drivers you will need and using sysprep. follow the steps in this document http://www.answersthatwork.com/Down...