Reinstalling Xp - On Many Machines

[firewater49]

Hello,
I do a lot of buying laptops for cheap from people, usually off of craigslist. I generally upgrade/fix them and then resell them on other sites like Ebay. For pretty much every one I want to completely reinstall windows and get it "fresh" again. For pretty much 100 percent of the laptops they do not have or know where the original disks are. The Laptops do, However, have the COA and Product Keys on the bottom of the machine. Any Ideas?? I was thinking I might torrent xp home and xp professional and then use the keys that the laptops came with - AFAIK this is legal.

I am really hoping there is a better/easier way. Much Appreciated!!!

BTW - For some of them they still have old usernames and passwords and I cannot even access windows.... This makes me even more so want to have a "fresh" copy installed.

THANKS A TON!

[glc]

The legality is a gray area, but more importantly, the keys may or may not work. They may only work with the manufacturer's recovery disks.

I will give you one tip - if you are dealing with Dells, you can use *ANY* Dell CD in *ANY* Dell and it will not ask for a key and it will be preactivated.