averatec laptop needs fresh xp install

[SeanFL]

I've been asked to help someone within the next couple days...he's a military serviceman that's in town for two more days before leaving to head back to Iraq.

Here's the deal: he has an averatec laptop that's about a year or two old. It came with xp. He believes the thing has spyware and viruses on it and wants it clean...a fresh install. He doesn't have the restore cd with him (if it even came with one).

The machine should have an xp license sticker on it somewhere, and with that, I'm hoping I can reinstall xp fresh for him. My question is this: what cd media do I need to use? I can get oem, and volume license media. Will either work with the license that's stickered to the laptop?

If those all seem problematic, does anyone have an averatec restore cd they would be willing to image and post somewhere for me? He called averatec and the can't get something to him within a couple days.

Thanks for any ideas. I'm seeing him this afternoon and he's in town through thursday. Sean

 

[Zugzwang152]

Originally posted by: SeanFL
I've been asked to help someone within the next couple days...he's a military serviceman that's in town for two more days before leaving to head back to Iraq.

Here's the deal: he has an averatec laptop that's about a year or two old. It came with xp. He believes the thing has spyware and viruses on it and wants it clean...a fresh install. He doesn't have the restore cd with him (if it even came with one).

The machine should have an xp license sticker on it somewhere, and with that, I'm hoping I can reinstall xp fresh for him. My question is this: what cd media do I need to use? I can get oem, and volume license media. Will either work with the license that's stickered to the laptop?

If those all seem problematic, does anyone have an averatec restore cd they would be willing to image and post somewhere for me? He called averatec and the can't get something to him within a couple days.

Thanks for any ideas. I'm seeing him this afternoon and he's in town through thursday. Sean

Assuming the license sticker is still on there, I would try first with an OEM CD. Otherwise, I would get XP on there using whatever key you can find, and use the well-documented method of key changing to get the correct one in, and then activate Windows using the correct key. End result is a correclty licensed and activated copy, however some may object to the means