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Reinstalling MCE OEM

S

Seekermeister

Golden Member
A member of the forum was nice enough to send me a replacement for the corrupt 2nd disk that I got in the MS package that I bought. Now, I want to install it, but I think that the only way that I can do that is a clean install of the entire OS. Normally, that would be no problem, but I vaguely remember some discussions about the fact that an OEM was rigged in some fashion to prevent it from being installed on more than one machine. This has me concerned that if I reformat, that the OS might not install again. Is this true? If not, is there any special steps that I need to follow?
 
If it's the same machine as before, the worst-case scenario is that you have to call a 1-800 number and activate it over the phone in person. You might be best off not doing the activation until you've got all your motherboard and video drivers updated.

Phone activation goes something like this: you try to activate Windows when the little balloon prompts you, it tries to activate over the Internet and can't, so you opt to activate by phone. It puts up a string of numbers that you read into a voice-recognition system, then you get connected to a live person who asks a couple questions (is this copy of Windows installed on more than one PC?) and then reads you a new long string of numbers that you type into boxes on your screen. Activation complete.
 
Hmm, same machine, and all the same hardware as when I first installed it, but I already activated it. Afterward, I installed a different video card, but I had to reinstall the old one, because of problem with the new one. I guess all that I can do is to reinstall and try to activate, as you suggested, and take it from there. Thanks.
 
Hi seeker, have you tried doing a repair install? (go through the install process, at some point it should recognize that there is an existing install and ask if you want to do a fresh install or a repari install (this is a ways after the screen that asks if you want to repair using the recovery console). Note that if you get a screen asking if you want to format your HD, you either have gone too far or that option isn't available to you. Anyway, if you do a repair install, MCE will recognize that it has already been activated an you won't have to do anything.
 
I hadn't thought of a repair install. When doing that with other versions of XP, there was only one CD involved. Would it normally ask for the second disk also?
 
just reinstall the OS. it may/may not ask you to call to receive real activation, but it is easily less of a hassle than trying to run repair windows, that utility just doesnt work well at all from my experience (which is like twice).
 
I can't say that I really like doing a repair install, but if it doesn't work, I haven't lost much, because I can always reformat and do a clean install to clear up any problems. If it did work, it would save alot of time reinstalling programs and resetting everything.
 
Originally posted by: Seekermeister
I hadn't thought of a repair install. When doing that with other versions of XP, there was only one CD involved. Would it normally ask for the second disk also?
Click to expand...

Yeah, the MCE repair install goes just like the first one, & asks for the second disk like as in a clean install.
 
Thanks, but I started having problems with the harddrive today, and am going to have to do a clean install on the new harddrive. I'm trying to figure out how to do that and keep my multiboot, using the second harddrive of my old raid array.
 
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