I am planning to reformat my computer but I lost my windows XP disk. If anyone has a copy sitting somewhere collecting dust, I would like to buy it from you. Thanks!!
Well, the disk for that is very specific to the laptop and although I'm not sure what the terms of use are for it, I don't believe it's legal to sell a windows XP OEM disk without the original computer.
If you still have the XP sticker on your laptop you should be able to install Windows XP HOME from any cd, even a downloaded version, and then using your key. All the specific drivers and whatnot can be found on the hp website.
That's not actually true, the keys are very specific to the version of the CD used to install. OEM keys will only work in OEM versions of the CD, although it doesn't matter what OEM shipped the CD. Granted that these are older machines and this doesn't readily apply, but Microsoft doesn't allow the activation of those keys from more recent shipments. The key on the bottom of the laptop is not used to install the operating system, the activation is done based on an HP-specific product key and the OEMBIOS files. Those two combine to allow for activation.