XP - Post-format and Reinstall Questions/Observations

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill
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Bill

Having recently told another poster to make sure he has his Product Key
handy when he formats and reinstalls, it dawned on me that I was never asked
for mine, nor am I being bothered about activation after having done just
that.

If you remember, I'm the same guy who had the progressively slower and
slower boot problem with my Dell. (Which nobody could get to the root of,
but is fine now.)

Regardless. I remember when I began the format/reinstall process, the
XP-installation CD reported that I had two "partitions" on C available to
format? One that was (if I remember correctly) 32MB, and another that
consisted of the rest of my hard drive space.

Now I don't know a whole lot, but I knew enough to know that there was no
way WIndows-XP was going fit on a 32MB partition, so I opted for the larger
one. :-)

However, I always thought that if there is more than one "partition" on any
given hard drive, they would be assigned different drive letters?

Or am I correct in my assumption that it's (the 32MB job) not really a true
'partition', but rather something that's somehow placed there by Dell that
contains all the information about my system? And being that I used the
XP-disk that came with the machine when I undertook this project, and didn't
change anything internally ....

*That's* why I was never asked for my product key, nor am I being bugged
about activation?

And if so? Do other large manufacturers employ similar (for lack of better
terminiology) tactics? Because if they do, doesn't that pretty much remove
any blanket statement one can make about the "proper" way to format and
reinstall the OS?

Just trying to understand, and thanks for your time.

Bill
 
Or am I correct in my assumption that it's (the 32MB job) not really a true
'partition', but rather something that's somehow placed there by Dell that
contains all the information about my system? And being that I used the
XP-disk that came with the machine when I undertook this project, and didn't
change anything internally ....

*That's* why I was never asked for my product key, nor am I being bugged
about activation?

And if so? Do other large manufacturers employ similar (for lack of better
terminiology) tactics? Because if they do, doesn't that pretty much remove
any blanket statement one can make about the "proper" way to format and
reinstall the OS?

Just trying to understand, and thanks for your time.
Click to expand...

Hard to say what Dell has in that little hidden partition but yes, many OEM
copies of XP are "pre-activated." Various mechanics are involved. One OEM
may use a different method than the next. My OEM recovery requires the
input of the product key but no activation - slightly different than what
you saw.

The blanket statement about having product key handy and to expect an
activation prompt is still a good one to make. If an OEM system has been
upgraded extensively and is quite different from the original
configuration, the activation prompt may be triggered during a reinstall.
The user is not left hanging wondering what to do next if this happens -
they're ready for it.

Worse case scenario with using the blanket statement: no need to enter
product key; no need to activate. These are good "oops" results and present
no problems to the user or their computer.
 
Same thing with my Dell. That little hidden Dell partition apparently
takes care of that part of the installation [and/or the Dell recovery CD].
Gene K
 
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