There is a mos interpretation of your questions. You do not need permission from Microsoft, or anybody else, to add a second Hard Dire to a PC that already licensed for Windows XP.
Both computers are Dell. Both have XP SP3. Both are licensed.
There is a difference in the hardware, but it is Dell hardware. There is way to get either machine to boot up the OEM Dell XP CD. (I have three different Dell machines. And three OEM CDs. But the all boot all my Dells. They are green, blue and purple. The BIOS is color blind.)
How to swap a IDE hard drive from a Gateway to a Dell the has a SATA hard drive
Do you intend to remove the SATA drive?
My questions are:
1. Since I am moving to the Dell will there still be a BIOS that I can set the IDE drive as the boot drive? If not how can I use the BIOS that I have on the CD?
The BIOS is very similar. Do not replace the BIOS.
2. I have no drivers, so will XP boot using generic drivers until I can download from Dell?
XP will recognize any IDE device.
3. Since my IDE Drive has an OEM version of XP (and a different flavor of XP) will it need to be reactivated, and infact will MS activate XP anymore?
No, tis should not be an issue.
4. If MS no longer activates can I download software that will retrieve my old act # and use that?
Why? if you only want to read the drive, the OS does not matter. Please clarify if you want to boot the borrowed IDE drive or do you want to still use the XP version on the SATA?
5. What other problems am I looking at and any solutions for those problems?
As I mentioned before, that model has only one IDE cable. So you have to share the cable with nothe the ODE drive and the IDE CD/DVD drive.
Boye the XP versions are SP3 OEM from DellIf the above statement, ignore the remarks the others have made. You have two Dells and two legal copies of the OEM version. With OEM versions a slight downgrade is not con tray to te license. The fact that the two versions have some difference is a case of splitting hairs In not way is it omparable to outright violation of the
One CPU One Lcense Rule.The import point is you have a license for each computer. The two versions of XP SP3 are virtually the same.
Please let me know if this helps any.