[Leica] OT- another computer question

[alal at duke.poly.edu (A. Lal)]

Just got off the phone after half an hour of playing a losing game of
verbal ping pong with HP's tech support, so thought I'd turn to
this group for help.

Here 's the problem. I have a 3 year old  Compaq computer which works
well enough. I only want to change the HD to a larger one. As the
machine did not come with windows install discs,  I ordered the system
recovery CDs from compaq. Well, when I plug in the new HD and put  the
system recovery CDs in the drive, I get a an error message stating
that the computer is not supported by theses discs. Now  the part
number on the Cds is right, so I called up HP tech support, only to
have them tell me that the recovery CDs do not support a new HD!! And
no, they don't offer Windows XP install CDs!!

So here's my question: how do I install the new HD without buying a
new copy of Windows? No, I don't want the new HD to be the secondary
drive.

Am I ever P/O at HP.

Akhil