XP Home password & activation... some Qs

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—§urfÅceЗ

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
266
I just finished my first ever build. The only recycled part is my HDD. A few weeks ago, on my last computer, I made the mistake of putting it into standby, which i hadn't done for years (i guess i forgot why).

The next morning I clicked my mouse, it started to resume and then suddenly my computer rebooted, right when the HDD (and RAM?} were busy getting my PC up to speed. I tried loading windows and I found that it was corrupted.

My new build was supposed to be perfect, with this screaming 8800GT, but because I fucked up a few weeks ago, Windows is giving me shit.

So here are my options, but I have questions/problems.

1. Repair Windows XP with my Windows CD
2. Reinstall Windows XP with my Windows CD

But here are the problems/questions.

When I try to repair windows, it asks me for the administrator password. I never set one. I tried "admin" and "administrator" and putting nothing in, but it won't accept them. Is there some default password?

And I am afraid that if I reinstall Windows, it will not work properly because I have already activated my copy (on the same hard drive). I dont know how Microsoft has that whole process work, but I dont want to rebuy Windows.

What should I do?
 
Is your Windows CD an actual, genuine, bought in the shops CD or do you infact mean it's a copy that you got with the PC with the name Dell (or similar) stamped all over it?

If it's the former, then it's strange that it should ask for a password. During the first blue screen your best bet is to delete the partition and do a complete reinstall.


If it's the later then the chances are high that you can't reuse it, buy an extra HDD and an OEM copy of Windows XP, total cost is about £80 for Home edition, £100 for Pro edition (and unless you're running as part of a domain, you only need the Home edition)
 
My CD is completely authentic, bought from Staples a couple years ago.

I've had this IDE HDD for maybe 5 years now, it came with an HP computer. Its old, loud, and slow, so I will be investing in a newer (SATA) and more capacious (around 320gb maybe) drive within the next month.

So if I try to reinstall, there shouldnt be any problems with authentication? My impression was that the whole authentication process is there to stop people from installing Windows more than once.
 
You can reinstall it just fine, the activation is to stop people from putting windows on more than one pc at a time. Retail windows can be moved to new pc's but can only be on one pc at a time while oem windows can only be installed only on one pc ever. Yes you can move oem windows to a new pc but it is against oem license. You can reinstall windows on the same pc as many times as you like.
 
I don't think it's anything to really concern yourself with...I have re-installed Vista Home Premium three times with my OEM disc... and I haven't had to call to activate....

And the last couple of XP installs with my ancient OEM install disc have gone off without a hitch... The OEM EULA states that you can only use that license to install Windows on the same hardware, not move it to a new computer, but from everything I have read, all it takes is a call to Microsoft, simply explain that the machine that the OS was previously installed on suffered from "catastrophic hardware failure" or something along those lines and your good to go.... and as said before, if it's a retail copy, you should have no problems at all.....
 
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