Vista Reinstall

i believe that my Hard drive is on the verge of a crash. i would like to
reinstall vista which is a upgrade copy and i installed over XP. i hvae
activated vista already. will i need to contact MS when i do the reinstall or
before. also is their anything special i need to be aware for when i get
ready to do the install on my new hard drive.

You will need to reinstall your qualifying os, in your case XP before you
can reinstall Vista. You will get an activation error that the key is in
use and you will need to do a telephone activation and explain your
situation. Usually no problem.

"Mike" <Mike@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:78D6457C-4C73-413E-91CA-E0935F9E8894@microsoft.com...
>i believe that my Hard drive is on the verge of a crash. i would like to
> reinstall vista which is a upgrade copy and i installed over XP. i hvae
> activated vista already. will i need to contact MS when i do the reinstall
> or
> before. also is their anything special i need to be aware for when i get
> ready to do the install on my new hard drive.

Hi Mike,

Image the drive with one of the many available programs, then swap the new
drive in and lay down the image. You may be prompted to reactivate due to
the hardware change, but it is simply a phone call.

If you absolutely have to reinstall, then as you are using an upgrade you
will need to either reinstall XP and then upgrade, or install the upgrade
twice (once as a clean install w/o the product key, then as an upgrade with
it). Again, you will need to reactivate using the phone method.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Mike" <Mike@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:78D6457C-4C73-413E-91CA-E0935F9E8894@microsoft.com...
>i believe that my Hard drive is on the verge of a crash. i would like to
> reinstall vista which is a upgrade copy and i installed over XP. i hvae
> activated vista already. will i need to contact MS when i do the reinstall
> or
> before. also is their anything special i need to be aware for when i get
> ready to do the install on my new hard drive.