How do I remove an OS off a hard drive without losing it?

@Juan F R What makes you think it is not illegal ? It is about as legal as taking anything else that you have not personally bought (or obtained permission to use) from the rightful owner(in this care Microsoft). I Guess you may also think it is legal for someone to “salvage” a car from a “broken garage” (without the permission of the owner) and store it away for themselves because “they don’t want to lose it”.

Unless the OP paulisfunky paid for a licence to install that particular copy of MS Win XP Pro from the copyright owners (Microsoft) or their authorized agents, any such procedure would be copyright theft, and that is definitely illegal - even if many people attempt to, or actually do, do it. Bear in mind, many people are also car thieves and your assertion that such behaviour is “Lol. Not illegal” would not make car theft legal any more than it makes copyright theft legal.

I really don’t get this, you want to remove an OS from the HD, but you don’t want to lose it. It takes about 15 mins to reload a OS from cd, or you can make a ghost image of it and reload it “depending on size” in very little time. I think you are making more work where it is not needed.

I think that really is the fundamental issue here. Either the OP ( paulisfunky ) is a legal license holder i.e. he either purchased a copy personally from Microsoft or their authorized agents, or it has been legally transferred to him together with all the original media & documentation etc..
If the OP is a legal license holder, the best way forward is to reformat the salvaged disk (thus losing that copy of Win XP pro) and reinstall from the original media when required onto what ever computer it is required. Without the original media or proof of a legal license to install / reinstall, any such procedure would be illegal.

I understand what you mean, but when he asked if it was illegal, I though he was talking about removing the information from the HDD without deleting the OS. I was not talking about the salvaging involved. I agree with you, he needs consent or to actually buy the part.

Bascially, i own the hdd. I wanted to maybe burn the os onto a disc and then format the drive and then put it onto the hdd in my computer. But dont worry now, i formatted the drive with it on.