To fully answer all your questions requires the model number of your HP 
Pavilion.

Since you are willing to use recovery CD's on the computer, installing 
XP Pro should present no problem. You might first want to save any data 
files to a CD or other media. Reformat your 'C' drive and then install 
XP Pro.

I'm not sure how many HD's your computer can use at one time, but it 
should handle at least two. You can do an 'image' of your 'C' drive onto 
a second drive using one of several available programs, but you can not 
'install' XP Pro onto a second drive in the same computer.

When you install XP Pro on your computer, it should identify all the 
components and install the appropriate drivers. You may have a disk(s) 
that came with the computer that has specific drivers on it. If so, you 
should use the disk to install those drivers. After XP Pro is installed, 
you should use Windows Update to download and install all critical 
updates. There will likely be some optional updates you may want to 
install and there may be some hardware updates that you should seriously 
consider installing.

I hope this helps.

Tom Mayer
 

Diane Kroeckel wrote:
> Dear Listers,
>  
> I have an HP Pavilion computer running WinXP2 home edition.  The recovery
> partition no longer works.  I bought recovery CD's from them.  Those also
> don't work.
>  
> I'd like to get WinXP2 Pro, complete edition to run on my computer.  
>  
> 1.  My question is, how many hard drives can I install this on.  I have
> several HD's for this computer and might want to load it on more than
> one.  They will all run on this computer though.  Can I install it on a
> freshly formatted HD?
>  
> 2.  Also, is my motherboard an HP one?, or just generic.  I'd like to run
> GoBack, but it won't run on my current system because it's an HP
> computer.  When I install WinXP, there won't be any HP software.  Is
> there any HP stuff on the motherboard that will prevent GoBack from
> running, or is it just the software?
>  
> 3.  How can I tell if my computer is a 32 bit or a 64 bit?
>  
> Thanks.
>  
> Diane Kroeckel
>
>        
>   

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