Can i install Win2K on Compaq with Dell Win2k reinstallation disk?

try this, put your compaq  hard drive into your Dell.. install windows 2000, then put the hard drive back into your compaq and see what happens...

hope this helps

~Binks

I'm afraid putting Compaq's HD into Dell Optiplex and reinstalling Win2K will not work. The thing is that Compaq and Dell have very diferent hardware. It i install Win2K via Dell, i may have a lot of hardware related issues later on when i use this HD on Compaq. So, technically i may be able to reinstall Win2K via Dell, but once the HD in Compaq, i will probably have a lot of bugs...
Any other ideas?

:) Hi Gvigorus,
You are absolutely correct about the swapping of the harddrives for the install being not a good approach. They would never work as expected.
Well, as far as I know you can always look at the i386 directory (and the reinstall) that might have got installed on the DELL machine and take that directory. By the way, did you see the contents of the re-install disk? It should have the windows install folder (i386). You can always boot into the Compaq machine and run the i386 setup (I am sure you don't need instructions from me for Winnt install! )

-Sree

You can always do it, but I don't think it will work. It will seem like its going to, but you'll get a BSOD ...

Unless you fall into a 10% lucky range, and your compaq computer uses same hardware as your dell computer ...

Regreatfully, I don't think it will work.

You are going to have to get a clean copy of windows 2000/XP or find that Compaq recovery disc. You can always get in touch with compaq and try to get a copy of your recovery disc from them ... I am sure they'll be glad to mail it to you ...

As I recall, HP/Compaq will probably charge you ~$40US for a new recovery CD.  But they'll send it.

Always a charge ... mostly shipping though .. at least most of the time. Don't know how they are handiling it now ...

Thanks for the input guys! The reason i don't want to order the original recovery disk for my Compaq is because this compaq runs Win 98. The machine is old, it was purchased for "an arm and a leg" in 1998 or something... So, now it's really slow, only 500Mhz, but i think it should be able to run at least Win 2000. I have tried running XP on it, but it's WAY TOO SLOOOOOOW... it was not a good idea at all. I don't have a separate copy of Win 2000 (like i did Win XP), so that's why i wondered if i could use a diferent PC's (dell's in my case) recovery disk to load Win 2000 in this Compaq. I suppose i can find a separate non-recovery copy of Win 2000, but i just wanted to see if i could use something that was handy, like Dell's Win 2000 recovery disk. So, i guess i'll try it and if it goes not work, i'll go from there... Thanks again for all your posts. Will let you know how this works out for me. May be i will be within the lucky 10% as per UICE :)
Serge

For example, I have Windows Server 2003 running on a Celeron 400 with 768MB ram, and while it's a tad sluggish, it runs.  If you have a P2-500 with 512MB, that should run WinXP okay.

Your right leew, sorry. Missed that out there ...

Ha, i thought if i bought a computer with an OS, i owned both the OS and the computer. If i happened to have two computers that i purchased and have two OSs that i purchased with those computers, i could take one OS and load it on the other computer, like swapping OS between the two if you will. I know that MS does not allow to load the same OS on multiple computers, but if i purchased the OS i should be able to load it on the machine i want to actually use. Ckratsch, and UICE get the points! Thanks to all!

The difference is that you're buying the license from the computer manufacturer, not directly from Microsoft.  OEM licenses are often tied by the manufacturer to the computer they were originally purchased with.

Had you bought a retail license, you'd be able to move it to another computer.

Thanks for the points!