building new system, how to get windows off compaq

[LilBuddy]

my cousin is ordering parts from newegg to replace his old compaq. we were wondering how he could get windows onto his new computer and new hard drive without buying a copy of xp since he already has it. is there some way to transfer all his stuff to a new disk to use on the new system?

i recomended him puttin his old HD in the new system and gettin it to boot up and then when in windows, running the windows xp install from our school on it to get it goin, then copy the data to the new one, then put it back in the compaq and runnin system restore. long but i think it would work.

how do yall do it? our school only has windows upgrade, not full

[fernis]

If by chance you are getting a western digital HD they come with software on a floppy to transfer data from old to new drive. I'm not sure if other drive manufactures come with this because I mainly use WD SE drives. This is a very easy and painless way to get an exacy bottable image of your old drive onto your new drive.

[JDXNC]

If the new drive is a Maxtor, they ship a peice of software called Maxblast to copy over the contents of the old drive to the new drive. I don't know how well it will work though, considering all the hardware will be new and most likely windows will lockup when it tries to start up.

[LilBuddy]

how have yall been doin this?