what to do please help

feelintherage · 26 Jul 2007 at 18:06

hi all,

some time ago i made a thread about my pc being rubbish and not working, so i sent it back and got the motherboard replaced for free to this one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-076-GI and im happy enough at that because its miles better than the old mobo.

During the last thread it became apparent to me that i was using an oem xp home 2002 and i wasnt allowed to transfer it to new pcs :eek:

(honestly didnt know), so i sent off my xp disk with the pc for the company to fix and install it and make sure the pc was fine however when i get the machine back and i turned it on it went to the install windows bit and it said put in the cd key so i did and it says its not valid and im like

(now admittedly i am in the wrong but im really stuck in between a rock and a hard place because i dont want to buy a new xp disk and i dont really want to upgrade to vista with the whole oem thing, so i thought i would just use what i had).

So what to do im not really sure do i buy another 1gb or ram and get a vista oem although it seems like a total waste £65 for a one shot wonder (im not exactly rolling in it at the mo and ive got some money left from my birthday but i was going to put it towards a new monitor). I currently have 1gb of corsair value pc 5300 ram (2x512) and i was going to purchase better ram at the same time as the monitor but no in the face of more than likely needing a new os (bye monitor

) i was just wondering if you could suggest what to do, am i best just getting 1gb more of ram or buying 2gb and vista or any other ideas

thank you

Gary

ps please dont flame me, i would appreciate constructive advice

Growlingfish · 26 Jul 2007 at 20:02

I think you are right, technically, about not being able to transfer your key over to a new PC, but this rule is more about stopping people passing out their key to multiple PCs to be used simultaneously. Even if you didn't know about the OEM rules Windows will automatically detect if you've changed the hardware set-up of your registered PC "drastically" (afaik Windows should only really kick up a fuss if you change something major, e.g. the mobo but I've had it moan at me when I've changed little things like the RAM), then invalidate your Windows key. I presume this is what has happened to you, as it probably has to many people here who upgrade their PCs; of course Microsoft understand that there are lots of people out their who regularly alter their PCs and allow you to call up and request a new key to replace your old one. When Windows tells you your key is invalid it should offer you the chance to put a new one in and should also tell you the number to call to get your replacement key as I just described ...

4ndy89 · 26 Jul 2007 at 21:04

It doesen't seem all that bad to me, I upgraded from this :

Amd Athlon 3200+
DDR1 1gb generic
Asus A7N8X
7800 GS GPU

To this :

C2D 6420
DDR2 2GB Corsair
Asus P5N-E SLI
8800 GTS

Installed Xp, inserted Cd key and it verified straight away!

edit : Used XP Home OEM

feelintherage · 26 Jul 2007 at 22:46

Growlingfish said:
snip

ive activated it before and had to phone but this time its different, its like the first time you boot to windows and you have to put your cd key to procede with installation

manveruppd · 26 Jul 2007 at 23:29

I'm not sure cause I don't own an OEM copy, but I think you need to call MS, explain that you replaced your motherboard due to it malfunctioning, and they'll give you another key.

Growlingfish · 26 Jul 2007 at 23:33

4ndy89 said:
It doesen't seem all that bad to me, I upgraded from this :

To this :

Installed Xp, inserted Cd key and it verified straight away!

edit : Used XP Home OEM

Maybe I have just been unlucky then (or they have stricter rules for Pro)

ive activated it before and had to phone but this time its different, its like the first time you boot to windows and you have to put your cd key to procede with installation

It's been a few months since I reinstalled Windows so I can't remember how the installation goes exactly; are you actually being stopped from installing Windows or is it just doing the 30-day countdown thing and failing to activate?
Edit: just read your post a bit more carefully: I'm not sure why you would be having this problem. Your key was obviously valid at some point in the past as you've used it before; I still use my original XP-key (which has since become invalid through hardware upgrades) when I do fresh installs, so I'm not sure why yours would be rejected.

misterPK · 27 Jul 2007 at 09:08

Ok, from reading your posts this is what I think you're saying has happened, so if I'm wrong please correct me. You sent your PC off to be fixed along with your XP cd. They fixed it and sent it back. Did they start the windows install for you? ie did you have to put the CD and install some stuff, restart the computer and then it asks for the key, or did you just switch it on for the first time and find it asking for the key?

If they did do the first bit for you then the key you're trying to use could be invalid because they've put a different version of windows on instead of using your CD. Now the way to check and/or solve this is to boot the computer from the CD and do the pre-install bit again yourself.

The only other thing is to check that you havent confused any o's (letter) with 0's (number) but I'm guessing thats pretty unlikely.

Hope that helps,

PK!

Growlingfish · 27 Jul 2007 at 09:11

misterPK said:
If they did do the first bit for you then the key you're trying to use could be invalid because they've put a different version of windows on instead of using your CD. Now the way to check and/or solve this is to boot the computer from the CD and do the pre-install bit again yourself.

I thought this too, but from the posts I got the impression that he'd started the installation himself. If not, I'd guess this is the problem!

feelintherage · 27 Jul 2007 at 12:30

misterPK said:
Ok, from reading your posts this is what I think you're saying has happened, so if I'm wrong please correct me. You sent your PC off to be fixed along with your XP cd. They fixed it and sent it back. Did they start the windows install for you? ie did you have to put the CD and install some stuff, restart the computer and then it asks for the key, or did you just switch it on for the first time and find it asking for the key?

If they did do the first bit for you then the key you're trying to use could be invalid because they've put a different version of windows on instead of using your CD. Now the way to check and/or solve this is to boot the computer from the CD and do the pre-install bit again yourself.

The only other thing is to check that you havent confused any o's (letter) with 0's (number) but I'm guessing thats pretty unlikely.

Hope that helps,

PK!

they have started the installation and then left it as i turned the pc on and its asking for the cd key, another problem is that when i select the boot order ie boot from disk the mouse and keyboard refuse to work it feels like they are locked out and i have even tried to re-plug the keyboard in during the time in which it says boot to disk and still nothing. then it loads up welcome to xp select your keyboard region, accept terms and then put in key when i do it just says its invalid.

the biggest problem is what i have mentioned before about the keyboard and mouse refusing to work to let me push a key to boot from disk

Edit: just to mention i am using home xp oem version 2002 this might shed more light on the matter.

manveruppd · 27 Jul 2007 at 13:02

feelintherage said:
the biggest problem is what i have mentioned before about the keyboard and mouse refusing to work to let me push a key to boot from disk

I'll assume you've checked that your kb&mouse are plugged in the right way round. Unless they're USB of course? If yes, then go into the CMOS and tell it to initialise USB devices via the BIOS rather than via the OS (should be under on-board peripherals or somewhere like that, depending on your BIOS).

feelintherage · 27 Jul 2007 at 13:19

genius ill try that

feelintherage · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:22

manveruppd said:
I'll assume you've checked that your kb&mouse are plugged in the right way round. Unless they're USB of course? If yes, then go into the CMOS and tell it to initialise USB devices via the BIOS rather than via the OS (should be under on-board peripherals or somewhere like that, depending on your BIOS).

you were right, enabled it the usb in bios then fresh install of xp!

im really happy just sorting out all my stuff now, however for some reason there seems to be a dual boot option of xp :confused:

although this didnt come up to after install everything seems to be ok as far as i can tell *fingers crossed*

i do have a question did i read about a patch or a fix for core2duo cpus recently im pretty sure i did but i dunno where but i could be wrong.

thanks for all your help really appreciate it

manveruppd · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:39

Yeah, my Logitech wireless stuff does that after almost every cold-boot. Really annoying!
Don't worry about the dual-boot option, that's probably your old Windows. You probably said "no" when it asked you if you wanted to overwrite your existing installation during setup, or maybe your manufacturer did when you sent it back to them.