I received my official copy of Win XP from Dell. This is the upgrade version of XP Pro. Because I had been using a prior copy of XP, I wanted to start clean with this upgrade. I ghosted my PC with a backup image of Win ME (an image I had made well before ever converting to XP; my own image copy of my completed Dell system). Once I reimaged my PC, I flashed my BIOS with the upgrade per Dell's recommendation. I then inserted the XP upgrade disk, clicked install, and received the error "Your copy of Windows XP does not support upgrading from an evaluation copy of Windows." To make a long story short, I called Dell support. It came down to performing a debug of my hard drive, then a fdisk. I then reinstalled WinME manually. Immediately afterwards, I tried the WinXP upgrade - same error message. We did the debug and fdisk a second time - still the same error. Any ideas what might be the cause? I mean, if I completely reformatted my hard drive twice and did a clean install of WinME (no, WinME is not an evaluation copy from Dell), there shouldn’t be anything lingering to cause this problem, should there? I do have a second hard drive. However, this drive is used for storage and backups (I don’t run programs from this drive). My hardware is as follows: Dell 1.5Ghz 40 GB hard drive (Primary, not partitioned) 10 GB hard drive (Secondary, not partitioned) 256 MB RAM

get a full version of windows xp from a friend that is bootable. Then just use the CD KEY that came with your copy of XP. It is legal. If your cd key won't work with that version of XP, call dell and tell them that they better send you a full version.

Well, I found what the problem was this this upgrade. Dell sent me Win XP Pro upgrade. I have Win ME on my PC. XP Pro upgrade won't work with Win ME!! Dell's solution: call the Dell XP upgrade center and have them send me the XP home upgrade version. Of course, I would need to send back my copy of XP Pro Upgrade. You would have thought the support guys would have known this before having me reformat my HD!

Try doing a low-level format of your hard drive. Use a utility from the hard-drive manufacturers website. I've had the same problem several times - this works!