Recovery of XP installation - SP2

[Craig Roberts]

I'm trying to do the recovery process on Windows XP Home.

The first Windows XP CD I found had XP Home SP2. the Windows Key on the
computer doesn't work.

So I found a Windows XP Home. and tried booting from it, but the system
wants to finish the XP Home SP2. for which I don't have a vaild key.

What do I do to force a restart of recovery from the XP Home?

Thanks!
Craig

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

How to replace lost, broken, or missing Microsoft software or hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326246/en-us

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

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:

| I'm trying to do the recovery process on Windows XP Home.
|
| The first Windows XP CD I found had XP Home SP2. the Windows Key on the
| computer doesn't work.
|
| So I found a Windows XP Home. and tried booting from it, but the system
| wants to finish the XP Home SP2. for which I don't have a vaild key.
|
| What do I do to force a restart of recovery from the XP Home?
|
| Thanks!
| Craig

 

[Guest]

Craig you are probably trying to enter a wrong product key (retail on oem or
vice versa) - or worse may have been given a known pirated/counterfeit serial
number which may be why SP2 rejects it.

As a very temporary solution - you need to boot from a correct (Hologram) cd
(that matches the COA for which version that you are installing) where you
will be informed that windows was in the process of being installed. you will
be asked wether you would like to proceed with a new installation or not.

If you do not have (or never had) a hologram CD then in most cases you will
not be in posession of a legitimate license for your desktop anyway.

Regards,

CRaven

 

[Craig Roberts]

Thank you both for quick responses.

I'm trying to recover a Dell, based using the machine key and retail/msdn
image. I'll get the dell CD from my neighbor in the morning!

Thanks!

Craig

 

[H. Debs]

I'm trying to do the recovery process on Windows XP Home.

The first Windows XP CD I found had XP Home SP2. the Windows Key on the
computer doesn't work.

So I found a Windows XP Home. and tried booting from it, but the system
wants to finish the XP Home SP2. for which I don't have a vaild key.

What do I do to force a restart of recovery from the XP Home?

Thanks!
Craig

Make sure the option to boot from CD is activated in the BIOS. If you
still can't boot from the XP Home CD, exit the SP2 setup when it asks
for the serial number (I think it's the F3 key, look at the bottom of
the screen), then boot from a DOS diskette with CD drivers installed,
navigate to the i386 folder in your XP Home CD and run WINNT.EXE
(which is the setup program).

HTH

Hab