Upgrading ME to XP

Hi BC Members,
I have a Dell Dimension L600cx running ME that I would like to upgrade to XP. Right now, the machine runs very slowly and hangs frequently. There is nothing on the hard disk that I want to keep, so I want to wipe everything away and do a clean install. I have a genuine XP upgrade (from 95/98/ME) disk. I do not have the ME install disk or any kind of "restore" disks for this thing. ME was pre-installed on this machine (the COA sticker is on the enclosure).
I don't want to do something stupid like deleting everything and then have the upgrade procedure fail because it couldn't find a valid 95, 98 or ME already in there.
Besides throwing it all in the trash and buying new stuff (can't afford that now), how should I proceed?

Since the upgrade will be valid from the OEM license, in the absence of original media it is permissible to use any borrowed Windows 9x/ME CD to allow the installation to proceed.

Before you even think about upgrading WinME to WinXP you need to check your computer spec. Processor speed, memory, hard drive size. Now for gods sake don't use M$ minium spec as they only wanted to sell WinXP when it first came out Windows XP Professional System Requirements

128MB RAM yes if you want to make a cup of coffee and drink it before something loads. I think 500MB is ok and memory is quite cheap.

233MHz processor again you can make another cup of coffee. 500MHz plus would be better.

1.5GB hard disk space, ok thats just for the system to install and operate not for saving any large files. I've had WinXP on my old computer with a 20GB hard drive with plenty of space for other things.

If your converting from a WinME system check the graphics card, sound card, printer and scanner etc if WinXP drivers are available else thats more bits of hardware you're going to need.

Checking the Dell website I am not finding drivers for XP specific to your system.
That does not mean that the drivers are not built into XP though.

Please go into control panel - system - hardware - device manager (if memory serves) and list for us the following:

Display adapter
Sound card
Network card
Modem (if present)

You definitely want to do a clean install on this and not an upgrade
As Platypus says, you will need something to upgade from.