Replacing my broken but only hard drive?

[yuinam_lau]

I have an old desktop computer who ran windows xp. The computer had only one 250GB HDD hard drive and I didn't divide at all, there was only a C drive. A few days ago the computer kept rebooting, and the reason of its failing should be due to the hard drive after me running a few test researched on the internet.

So I took out the failing hard drive and plugged in a new 1TB hard drive. I wanted to use Windows 7 this time so I burnt a Windows 7 DVD through the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. And I did the process of changing the 1st booting priority to the DVD drive in the BIOS.

But after putting in the DVD I still got the message of "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key". Did I do anything wrong? What shall I do to use the new hard drive? Thanks a lot.

p.s. I didn't have the original windows xp disk, and I prefer to use Windows 7 this time

[strollin]

I would suspect something is amiss with the newly burned Win 7 disk.  Does the disk boot on another machine?

[yuinam_lau]

I tried and it worked. Or should I put in something like recovery disk but not a brand new windows installation disk?
Or should I put in a win xp disk instead?

[Geek-9pm]

General Reference:

Creating a Windows 7 flash drive installer on a Windows computer

    From the Microsoft Store, download and install the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
    From the Start menu, open the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool Setup Wizard.
    When prompted, browse to your .iso file, select it, and click

Nore: the above assumes you have a working windows computer and a USB flash stick.

[yuinam_lau]

Hi so I have tried to burn both 32 bit and 64 bit of windows 7 but both of them didn't work and stuck in the "Hardware Monitor" page.

I didn't have my win xp disk so I have downloaded different types of windows xp on the internet and put them into a usb drive by rufus. I have entered the setup page but they all show up "Setup cannot find the End-User License Agreement (EULA). Setup will not continue." What should I do?

[Computer_Commando]

Your old desktop computer probably doesn't have a DVD burner, only a CD burner.
Windows XP is not available as a download.
You need a valid Product ID for any copy of Windows.

[Geek-9pm]

Recent versions of Windows lets a user install and run windows for a limited time without activation of the product. This allows time  to either repair the hardware or decide not to purchase the software.
But using a not legal copy of Windows or a bogus key is a violation of the law.
Download Windows only from the official download site.
This link prov ids some helpful information.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/f/download-windows-7.htm
Which agrees with the official  MS:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads

[yuinam_lau]

I downloaded Win 7 on the official website and I used my laptop to burn the DVD,  I tried to run those on my laptop and they were fine.  Now I am suspecting my desktop doesn't satisfy the requirement of running Win 7. (it was a Core 2 duo computer built by my frd in 2008)

So am I run out of "free" method to fix my computer? Is Linux free? I am a poor student who can't spent like $50 for an older operation system because I already spent $50 for a new hard drive, which was a lot for me. I apologize if I did sth wrong.

[Geek-9pm]

Use one of the small Linux packages to see if the computer works.
One such is 'Puppy Linus' which requires no hard drive space.  It can run is memory after booting from a CD.
http://www.puppylinux.com/
I have often used it to verify  an old computer works when the hard drive is bad.
It can do Internet with an Ethernet or can find some of the Wi-Fi adapters. I has a nice desktop using just VGA quality. It can mount t a readable drive. It can save data to a USB stick.

[yuinam_lau]

Sorry for the late reply, I was dealing with some personal problems. I put the puppy linux into a flash drive and I still stuck at this page (I found this pic on the internet, but pretty much the same).