2 Simple Laptop questions

[Charliegrs]

I just got a second hand Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop from my roommate and something appears to be wrong with it and since I want to start it over fresh and new I am going to reformat it. I plan to put a new copy of XP on the laptop using a XP cd I own since my roommate no longer has the original recovery disk. So heres my 2 questions:
1. I plan to use my XP cd, however I have already loaded XP onto my desktop computer using this disk. So if I load XP onto the laptop with this disk, will it cause any problems having 2 computers with the same XP copy and same serial number? Ive heard it can cause problems with windows update. Also, theres a separate serial number on the bottom of the laptop, can I use that instead? Or does it have to match the recovery disk that the laptop came with?

2. Im going to have to download all the drivers for the laptop from the dell website like the chipset drivers, graphics driver etc. But when it comes to the DVD drive drivers, there are a number of different drivers that correspond with different manafacturers DVD drives. I guess this particular laptop could have had a couple different DVD drives from different companies in it. Is there any way I can determine what the manafacturer is of the dvd drive? perhaps theres a way to do it through the device manager in windows? I cannot see any kind of label or anything on the drive itself.

Thanks for any and all help.

 

[frozenlead]

If your XP copy is retail (meaning you bought it separately) don't bother using it. Just torrent an image of an OEM XP cd, and use the key on the bottom of the notebook to activate it.

XP has some pretty good stock drivers. Just install it and try burning a DVD. If it works, great, don't bother with the other drivers. They don't do a whole lot. If not, you'll have to take the drive out and read it's label.

 

[Charliegrs]

well actually my copy of xp is an oem version, so that means i can use that with no problem?

 

[frozenlead]

Yeah, sure, so long as it doesn't install any proprietary drivers or whatnot.

If you don't know, just try it. The worst that could happen is you wiping the disk and starting over.