Legal way round this

[AnastieByte]

Friends Packard Bell Pc had a terminal HDD failure. He only has recovery Cd obviously the Microsoft code is on the side of his case. Is it legal (not interested in illegal methods) as he is a policeman to do this.

He has asked me to put a new HDD in however I doubt the recovery CD will work in the new HDD. So am I allowed to use my official windows xp CD and then get him to telephone microsoft using his cd key on the side of his case to activate etc?
Or does he need to buy a new op system? Seems a bit unfair if he has to

Thanks

 

[ns400r]

I doubt his key will work with your CD but you can try.

I would just try the restore CD first anyway. The activation can be done online too.

 

[nade]

As far as i'm aware the OEM license for the Packard Bell PC belongs to the PC as a whole, so i think you could argue that changing just the hard drive doesn't really change the PC. Hence i would say you should be OK using another CD to install it, but he would then have to use his product code.

Just my thoughts on it

But like ns400r said, it's possible the cd key won't even work.

 

[UKDTweak]

You can legally change the hdd and install the software from the recovery CD, as it is still in the same pc to which the licence is attached, as long as the original drive is dead, however, in the past PB have tagged their motherboards and hdd's and the recovery cd looks for said tag before it will allow the install, dont know if they still do this, but if they do you will need to transfer the tag from the motherboard to the new hdd before you can use the recovery cd, i suggest you look around the PB forums for more details.

As others have said, your OEM code will most likly not work with your retail disk.

 

[GM@N]

The Keys are not locked per CD so yes you will be able to use your CD with his key.

 

[Otacon]

The Keys are not locked per CD so yes you will be able to use your CD with his key.

Unless, like UKDTweak said, it's a retail CD. Even if it is OEM, there's still no guarantee. For instance, I couldn't use a Dell OEM CD to restore a HP machine.

 

[Dutch Guy]

If he only has a recovery CD it's not good as they are not for a complete reinstall of Windows, or am I wrong?

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I guarantee his CD will NOT work with the OEM code on the side of the PC.

 

[GM@N]

We have a bunch of OEM keys here (dell) that all work fine with the original standard XPCD. Well at least thats my experience anyway, guess like UKDTweak said and it depends on the manufacturer