HP DV2: Recovery with a replacement motherboard + HDD

Hey there.


I have a five-year-old HP DV2007EA laptop the motherboard of which has been replaced with a similar Compaq Presario V3000 item.

Now I am experiencing problems with the original HDD and I want to replace it too. The problem is that the system will no longer accept the original recovery discs (due to tattooing or whatever it's called).

What can I do? I have been suggested to acquire a bare Win XP (retail?) cd, install it with the product key on the bottom of the machine and then download the necessary drivers from HP. Is that possible?

The other way would be to clone the HDD, but I'm not too keen on that since the content is probably filled with corrupt data, bad sectors and whatnot.

Thank you.

 

I saw that you already got the best solution possible in the other forum

Since someone else would also need this answer in the future:

Obtain XP SP3 install disc, home or pro depending what license you have. Install normally, if the sticker key works during install everything is fine. If it doesn't, ignore it and continue install.

Afterwards you can use Microsoft's tool to update correct key.

 

Yeah, just making sure. Thanks.