Last month I bought my son an older dell laptop a 300xt on ebay and it had no os in it so I have a dell desktop and I thought I could put the windowsxp recovery operating system disk in and it worked he'/s been using it now I get the unmountable boot volume and it wont let me do anything in recovery console. It also says that the partition is unknown. I am able to make checks when I change from a c to a d. I'/ve been trying various things but it doesn'/t still boot up. It does put the windows screen on and searches but then goes to the blue screen. Is this because I used the windows xp recovery disk or is it an hardware issue. It was working he was using it online for weeks before this happened. I would appreciate any help on this issue.

Its not allowed to use one XP on more that one computer. You can read the END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT at-- C:\WINDOWS\system32\eula.txt http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... "STOP 0x000000ED UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" Error Message When You Restart Your Computer or Upgrade to Windows XP

I read that but why did it accept it in the first place and then show the error and is there a way to download the window start up disks I need from another computer and burn it to a cd to use on his laptop.

Many computer makers make their CDs only usable on the computer they came with. Like if a person changed the Motherboard, then the Operating System would have to be Reinstalled. You would have to install the identicle same make and model Motherboard, in some cases. If you had an original Full Version XP, that was used in another computer, then install it into another computer, then you will run into other problems. Also, if you remove a working HDD (with XP on it) out of one computer, then place into another computer, then XP will not load. Best bet is to buy a new Full Version of XP. Then good luck on finding the drivers for the older hardware. Other than Windows, there are other Operating Systems available FREE for download from the Internet.

You have an extremely old Dell Latitude CPi. I hope you didn't pay much for it...maybe $25? It was designed for Win98, not XP. 128MB memory isn't enough memory to run XP...it will run but it will be unbearbly slow, especially after you install an anti-virus program & firewall. Even if you were to upgrade the RAM, the max is 256MB. That's better, but still not enough for a decent XP experience. And gaming is out of the question, unless you consider Spider Soltaire to be gaming...lol. Stick with Win98. Or if you know how to properly tweak WinME, that would be another option...maybe even Win2000. If you know where to look online, you can download the ISO then burn a disc. 128MB RAM isn't enough memory for most Linux distros either but you *should* be able to get Damn Small Linux to run well, maybe Puppy Linux. http://support.dell.com/support/edo... http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_S... http://www.puppylinux.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_...

DELL's use a BIOS LOCK CODE to authenticate the O/S, and providing the PC/Laptop has an XP CoA, sharing XP CD's is not an issue. If you bought this old clunker from EBAY it probably has a faulty hard drive or controller chip....