Replies to post #16541 on Computer Learning (HELP)

[tc]

did it work because both laptops were Dell?

That would be my guess. The XP disk is probably a restore disk and not a full copy of just XP Pro, right? On the HP, the hardware would be completely different and probably would not work. Since the Dell XP restore disk found Dell "stuff", it was happy and didn't have to get a new activation. It is pre-activated with the Dell restore disk.