I am fixing a computer for a friend, which has a Windows XP Home Edition installation that will not boot. I think there's corrupted system files; I was able to boot from a Windows XP Pro disc, tried fixing the MBR and everything else I could. I've determined that the best course of action is to re-install Windows. I have her genuine product key, but I only have a Windows XP Professional disc, not a Windows XP Home disc. I don't think Microsoft offers any OS downloads on their website and I can't see any way to fix this computer without actually having an XP Home disc.

The computer is a Dell Inspiron 6000, is there a way I could get it from Dell? I know some Dell computers come with recovery partitions (as this one did) but when those are gone... well, they aren't much good.

What can I do?

asked Nov 12 '10 at 18:00