On Wednesday 14 September 2005 21:25, Greg Wallace wrote:
Well, he does have a Linux MBR on that disk, and the fact he has a Linux system and is just trying to make a hardware correction with a system about to fail made me feel like it was ok to give him a high-level suggestion, even though it technically wasn't a Linux question.
I agree with you completely, Greg. The approach is to help fellow SUSE users out whenever possible. At the same time, this isn't a "general purpose" PC tech support forum, either. When I read his post I concluded that his was an XP problem: the hardware profile will no longer match the signature that is embedded in XP if he just backs everything up, replaces the *system* drive and restores from the backup. XP will think it's been pirated. He's better off using XP tools to transfer the activated installation to a new drive. He /might/ still be required to activate the product again, but at least he won't lose access to his data. To my knowledge, there's nothing in the SUSE or Linux arsenal that allows him to circumvent this process. - Carl