My computer crashed yesterday.  I think thats the term for it.  Its running windows xp.  Well, I shut it off at night, and when I tried to turn it on in the morning, the computer came on , the fan started SPINNING, lights came on, but the hard DRIVE KEPT making clicking noises.  So, I hurriedly took out the hard drive, and retrieved my data from the hard drive through that IDE-USB adapter.  So, at least that was safe now

I think the disk is bad, and I need to replace it.  HOWEVER I dont really want to pay for a whole new operating system.  Is there a way to transfer the operating system from the old drive to the new drive with its activation status, so that I dont start gettting those pesky activation notices?
Does the PC have the COA activation sticker on it still ? ?
If so you can legally re-install XP to it...
NOTE:: The CD needs to be from MS and the versions need to match exactly.yes the computer has the COA sticker on it.  Problem is I dont have the disk and I dont even remember getting one.  I have another computer that runs XP for which I do have a disk, can I use that disk?
Only if it's a Microsoft CD...and only if the installed version matches the disc version as i said above.
If not you will need to borrow the correct one.Just WANTED to mention that if you had a friend who has the correct disc version for your system, you can make a new disc for yourself by creating a slipstream disc. As long as you have the COA on the computer its still legal to use slipstream with this box, and the next time you need to perform a rebuild for any reason, hopefully this slipstream disc will be available to use to install the OS.

Slipstreams are mainly used by IT professionals to push an install to a system direct with security patches and service packs all rolled into the install process, this way after the install your not having to play catch up with the 150+ updates and up to 3 service packs depending on the disc version used to create the slipstream from.