Grabbing it all while it's still available online to save for down the road is fine though (say for instance if you cannibalize the machine for parts ).
I had an old Hewlett Packard laying around and tried a HD swap out. Everything was fine but the video drivers. I got a choice between 2 or 16 colors LOL. The HP box had XP in it but loaded with Trojans. The system was given to me and I can't access the Control panel or anything except the basics. It also has a second system boot Whistler XP home edition {going on memory sorry} that I think is the virus re-write and has system control. I swapped them back till I decide what to do with my old Compaq next. I disabled the modem on the Hewlett Packard and let the grandkids play games on it. I told them don't copy anything from it LOL. It works good enough for that. If I had the original disk I would just reformat it. My cousin who gave it to me had put Blubster in it and ran it without any virus protection whatsoever. He gave me three and only the one without Blubster was virus free. The bad news was it has W/M.E. the only one I've ever actually seen function right LOL.
I'm not a techie by a long shot but I do most of my own repair work though. When I get too frustrated I scrap them for parts :>} The one I do not attempt to work on is the Laptop. I bought it last summer from Dell and an extended service plan/warranty to go with it for that reason. It's my dream machine with most of what I wanted put in it including XP instead of VISTA.
One of the junkers I have is gonna get Linux pretty soon when I get enough time to do it. If Microsoft can't do better than VISTA then when XP dies I'll go elsewhere. I don't get it though XP is the most reliable and stable system MS built. Why the change? I tried VISTA on a display at a store and swore I would never buy it.