Hey all! I'm new to this site, so I really hope I'm putting this in the right place. I search Google and here, but didn't find any information to really fix this whole issue. I shut my computer off one night after using it, the next day when I turned it on it wouldn't work. It said my 30 day trial was up and that I needed to Activate Windows. The odd thing about this is that I have had this installation up and running for over 2 years. It is the Windows XP Professional Upgrade. I am willing to show proof that I do in fact own my copy of Windows. I have the original disc as well as the booklet thing it came in. Anyway. When I first turned it back on, I tried to activated by phone and it was a failed attempt. I tried again after re-entering my same key, another fail. I tried one more time with my same key, and yet another failure. It did give me a different confirmation code each time, but none of them worked. I rebooted to safe mode, scanned with AVG 8 Free, SpyBot: S&D, & Malware Bytes Anti-Malware. I let it fix everything, then I rebooted to normal mode, I tried to login and a whole new issue occurred. Now it says I need to Activate Windows and then it automatically does something and flies through everything. Then it gives me some error that Microsoft can't do something or another. I haven't booted this PC in about 2 months now because of this issue. The copy of XP is on a 120GB WD HDD and has a lot of my data files on it. I also have a 300GB Maxtor HDD out of an external enclosure because the enclosure failed. So it's just for storage, which I'm pretty sure that I would be able to put into another PC and access it's contents. I was thinking about uploading all of my files somewhere just so I may clean the drives off. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. The online services I've looked at are MediaFire, & MegaUpload. I read something about Microsoft have some 25 gigabytes of free online storage for Windows Live users or something I think. However, in total I'm looking at needing something more along the lines of 400 gigabytes. Any advantages, disadvantages, personal experiences, comments, etc please let me know. Thanks. I'll be glad to provide any additional information I may. I will also do my best on getting the PC hooked up tomorrow. I wish I could run screen capture software on it so that I could show you, but I don't think that's possible. Unless I may hook up the screwed HDD to another computer and then somehow have screen capture software on that PC and boot the screwed HDD out of the jacked computer in some kind of virtual system and screen capture the whole thing. I guess that would be like running an OS inside an OS and having to login the jacked pc with a password. I haven't ever heard/read of this being done. It sounds like something that would be a major pain anyway. I read up on some virtual stuff, I think it was VMWare and MS Virtual PC or something. I don't know much about it, but after reading what little did I'm almost positive that I'm going to want to run it on my next configuration to avoid some of these overly screwed problems. On one other side note, does anyone know of any other online training websites that are like W3 Schools, except for software? Finally finished. Sorry if I have wasted anyone's time. From what I've heard and read here this is a good site to get help. dX PS - Last thing, I promise. I know e-mail posting is not allowed, but are you allowed to share messenger IDs?
Wow seems you have had a hard time with this issue. I would recommend that u call Microsoft again and actually try to talk to a technician and mention that u are having this issue and they will renew the code and activate windows with no dramas. Give it a shot and keep me posted on your progress.
Hey. Ok, thank you. I will try that sometime today (it's 1:24 AM here, so have to wait a few hours). I haven't had a chance to hook up the computer as of yet, as I've been keeping quite busy. I guess I'll go hook it up right now though. I hope it doesn't do anything screwy since I pulled one of the DVD writers and put it in another computer. I pulled the drive because the other computer I was using, which is not mine, only had a CD writer and I have gigs of data on it. Anyway. I'll see if I may be able to get a good shot of what it does with my phone or something and then put it on this PC and edit in some audio or something. Everyone is asleep, so I don't want to have to talk loud or pretty much at all, tonight, if I may help it. I'll see what's going on though. Hopefully I won't end up losing all of my data, that will suck. I know it happens though. Maybe I'll just build me a computer using RAID 1+5 (15); i.e. mirroring of a RAID 5, versus a RAID 5+1 (51)where as it would be striping over mirrors with a parity. I don't know which would work better, but that's not what this post is about nor the proper location, so I'm not asking about it now and please do not discuss it now. I respect forums as the are a great means to receiving help and I appreciate it when others do so as well. It's a pain for Admins and Mods to have to always move and close things because people are too lazy to read. Sorry, rambling. It's late; poor excuse, I know. Well, on another note, I'll be post back on the flip side; which by then I should have photos and videos. Thank you for the help/suggestion borhan9. I'm not sure how to get a hold of a tech, but you may bet that I'll be getting a hold of one tomorrow.
One other thing I just realized, my thread was posted as "Can't" I'm not sure what happened to the rest. I type Can't activate Windows because it's already activated. Oh well though. Just wanted to let whoever reads this know it wasn't intentional. Well, I'm off to see if maybe I may be able to answer any questions.
Just to let you know you should have an option at the bottom of the screen that should let you edit the title of the thread. Quickly in regards to the raid thing i would not have a clue on how to set up any form of Raids soo i would not be the person to ask. However i do know that it does combine a few hard drives to one whole i am not a big fan of that thing cause if i loose data i hate trying to set that up again.
Sounds like a few hardware changes were made however not being able to reactivate suggests you reached the maximum amount of activations & now need to contact a person to reset it,there shouldn't be a problem just make sure you have the hardware you want installed this will stop any flags appearing when xp updates,after so many hardware changes like Ram,HDD's,ethernet card,mobo or graphics & you attempt an update all the changes are noted if many are present then you will get a reactivate on next boot or while just doing the norm. Virtual ware is unnecessary a better bet would be Returnil there's two versions the free personal edition & pro http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/ Any data you need to recover can be got by installing those hdd's to another comp or to an external hdd housing
Sorry for the long delay. I haven't been able to get on here in a while. I had another drive that was like this drive. I was testing all of my hard drives a day or two ago, and during the process the other drive that had the same issue no longer has any of the files on it but will login to windows. It said something about a missing ATPI or something, I couldn't catch it as it was a fast blur. As for the 120GB HDD, does anyone know how to use Windows Recovery Console or the prompt and replace the windows activation files? I did use WinImage once to get it on my 300GB HDD and then ran it with MS VPC 2K7. It just wouldn't boot. I don't know how to edit the boot record so it will load on a VPC. As for the change of hardware thing, I've swapped stuff like mad before and haven't ever had an issue where I couldn't easily reactivate it. I've even put the same copy of Windows on other hard drive because one would screw up and I'd get the data off it and clean the drive. So I'm only using 1 copy of it. No changes to the system. I can't just put it in an external enclosure or another PC, the files are protected. I already had it connected to another computer and it would not let me access the files on the 120GB HDD. I'm just wanting to use VW because if something screws up (e.g. virus, malware, etc.) I can just toss the VM and create a fresh copy. That's why I want to use RAID 15. A mirror is an exact copy, if a drive fails, it's not so much as rebuilding as copying. RAID nesting and RAID 6 are quite rare, have very specific requirements, cost a lot, and not to mention have a bit of overhead. RAID O1 Is the most common nested RAID. It's integrated into most motherboards nowadays.
