Hitachi GD_5000; Sony CD-RW 100 not recognized

Have a XPS T700 circa 1999 w/ CD devices noted.  OS is XP home edition.  Put in the free AOL security softwafe from McAfee instead of renewing Norton Anti-V 2006. Used the Norton tool to remove.   Mcafee blocked getting to the internet. Guess you get what you pay for.  Uninstalled McAfee w/program downloaded from McAfee site a friend put on a disk.  Bought Micro Trend Pencillin, installed & updated. Decided to get stuff off HD.  Used Exposed,  it showed 9,000 images on the computer over the last 9 years,  deleted 4500 of them one by one. Pretty boring. Ran Tracks Eraser Pro to clean up and free more HD space.

 

Sysyem  now won't recognize either the Hitachi of Sony CD. Go to My Computer, nothing there but the "C."  Downloaded drivers from mfger's sites.  Sony installs but still not recognized. Hitachi a WinZip file that won't install. It says it has opened but then goes back to square one. Device Manager says drivers successfully installed for both but the devices are missing.  Now cannot install any thing from CD's. Actually can't do anything with the CD's

 

Two more Q's. Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask.  System came with Windows 98.  Dell sent the XP professional edition later.  Package says the Code of Authenticity for XP Pro is on a label affixed to the machine by Dell.  Can not find where attached to the machine.  Anyone know where Dell put it.

 

We upgraded to XP Home edition.  We forgot that the Dell had sent us the other.  Thinking of putting in a new HD and clean install xp.  New HD is Western D 120 GB.  Have upgraded the Bios.  Will the computer recognize that the  XP disk is in the CD Drive even though the cd's are not being recognized now if I try to install the new drive? 

 

Aplogies for all the detail but hope more is less in this instance

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Bill