My four-year-old PC recently started making lots of clicking noises and now the drive seems to have completely given up. Is there a way of transferring Windows on to my new drive?
Mike Salmon
Ideally, you should be able to copy the disk image from your backup. If not, your PC manufacturer should have provided you with a backup copy of Windows on a small partition on the hard disk - which is now lost - and/or a recovery CD specific to your hardware. Your cheapest option is therefore to contact the PC manufacturer and ask for a CD: you may be able to do this by entering the model number at the company's website. However, PC makers vary in efficiency and most don't keep recovery CDs forever.
Since you didn't buy Windows from Microsoft, it won't provide you with a recovery CD; it doesn't keep them, or even know what's on them. You can, of course, buy a new copy of Windows XP, but you will also need to reinstall your old programs and data.
An alternative would be to install, for example, the Ubuntu version of Linux. That depends on the size of your investment in Windows software, whether you need to run programs that are not available for Linux, and whether you are willing to learn a whole new system.
