I currently have a pentium 3 running win 98 ver 2 which crashes three times a day. I have another computer, an e-machine that runs on xp very successfully. Could I use my restore cd from my e-machine to install xp on my pentium 3 (after having foromatted the c drive)? The restore cd for the emachine tells me it is for e-machines only. Yeah, I'm cheap and I'm trying to save a few bucks, but I think after cursing us with Win 98, the least thing Microsoft owes us is a stable operating system. Thanks.

I don't think so. As far as I know, restore cds only work with the original system they came with.

Even if it would work it is illegal. Buy yourself a legal copy of XP for the Win 98 machine.

Actually, that is an interesting concept. Would using a restore disk (if it could be done) actually be illegal? After all, you are not using the direct software with a product resgisteration, but a copy of it. I honestly don't know. However, I do know that restore disks are dishonest. If you buy a new item in a store, and after you pay for it the salesman gives you an imitation of that merchandise instead of the original item, would you be angry? Would you be cheated? That's what a restoration disk is. You pay full price for the Operating System, but you don't get the operating system, just an imitation of it. Then Big Bill says, "Ah, but that's intellectual property and its special circumstance because computers are dark and mysterious and different". Okay, Bill Gatesis in a book store, and there is a beautiful, hand-tooled leather, sewn binding book of Tom Sawyer for $200. He pays his money, goes up to the counter to get his book, and the salesman hands him a glossy photographed copy of the original book, with each page photographed and stapled together. "Ah," he says, "that book is intellectual property so I am allowed to do that." I will guarantee Big Bill would have his lawyers on that case in one hour.

You know Al... I imagine it would be illegal or "dishonest" in some way, but as the above post says, Gates has been doing some ridiculous things. You're not going to burn in hell for trying it, and if it works, poor Billie is out about $100. You already purchased his damn software on your e-machines...what more does he want? If you are that fed up with Win 98, backup everything you need, and try to install from the recovery discs. If it works, great. If not, just reinstall Windows 98. It probably needs a good reinstall anyway, from what you describe. And please post back as to your findings...that would be very interesting. -=Bryan=-

It won't work... emachine restore disks are made using norton ghost. It's an image of an already installed operating sysytem complete with drivers for the hardware. When you use a restore disk the first thing it looks at is the MBR - sector zero of your drive and matches it to the info obtained when the image was made. So the drive address must be: Hard_Drive_0_Partition_1, then it checks the drive capacity and the amount of cylinders and matches that... You can remove hardware from the original system but you can't add anything to it and the drive has to be 100% identical to the one that the drive image was created from... :)