K
Ken
The motherboard in my home built Vista Home Premium (OEM version) system
stopped recognizing IDE devices a month or so ago and I had to replace it.
I could no longer purchase an exact replacement but I could re-use my 820
Pentium D CPU. The new board required DDR2 RAM so I had to purchase a 1 GB
stick to replace the old DDR1 sticks I had used previously.
Fired it up and found I could not successfully restore a Ghost image of the
previous system to the new board, (no surprise there!) so reinstalled Vista
to the same hard drive. After a few days of successful operation I
activated the new system online no problem. The new motherboard and RAM were
accepted without question.
However.. the new board had only one IDE channel and expected users to
instead use the newer SATA drives rather than the old PATA types. Although
I could install both my DVD drive and my old PATA drive on the same cable,
physical cable management issues were a serious problem. Plus I understood
that mixing CD-ROM or DVD drives on the same IDE channel was a bad idea
anyway.
So.. a few days ago I installed a new 500 GB SATA drive and again
reinstalled Vista on it. Added a few apps and then waited a few days. When
all looked ok, I tried to re-activate it one more time.
No joy this time! Vista protested that the product key that I had entered
was already in use and offered several options for me to choose from the
resolve the problem.
I chose the "Automated Phone System", call the toll free number and read off
the nine 6-digit or so numeric fields as the automated operator requested
them. She then said she could not "validate" my system so transferred me to
a human operator. He asked for the first group of digits and asked if I
bought the system with Vista installed? I said no, that I had built it up
from components. He asked if this was the first time activation for this
system and I said no, that I had been using it for several months but due to
part failure I had to replace several components in it. He did not require
any more information regarding what had failed and what I had replace, but
just asked how many systems this software was currently installed on and I
said ONE.
He was satisfied and gave me another 9 fields of six digits each to enter at
the bottom of the on-screen form presented for "automated phone activation".
That done, the system reported that it had successfully activated. Took
about six min total
Very business-like and professional. Thanks Microsoft!
stopped recognizing IDE devices a month or so ago and I had to replace it.
I could no longer purchase an exact replacement but I could re-use my 820
Pentium D CPU. The new board required DDR2 RAM so I had to purchase a 1 GB
stick to replace the old DDR1 sticks I had used previously.
Fired it up and found I could not successfully restore a Ghost image of the
previous system to the new board, (no surprise there!) so reinstalled Vista
to the same hard drive. After a few days of successful operation I
activated the new system online no problem. The new motherboard and RAM were
accepted without question.
However.. the new board had only one IDE channel and expected users to
instead use the newer SATA drives rather than the old PATA types. Although
I could install both my DVD drive and my old PATA drive on the same cable,
physical cable management issues were a serious problem. Plus I understood
that mixing CD-ROM or DVD drives on the same IDE channel was a bad idea
anyway.
So.. a few days ago I installed a new 500 GB SATA drive and again
reinstalled Vista on it. Added a few apps and then waited a few days. When
all looked ok, I tried to re-activate it one more time.
No joy this time! Vista protested that the product key that I had entered
was already in use and offered several options for me to choose from the
resolve the problem.
I chose the "Automated Phone System", call the toll free number and read off
the nine 6-digit or so numeric fields as the automated operator requested
them. She then said she could not "validate" my system so transferred me to
a human operator. He asked for the first group of digits and asked if I
bought the system with Vista installed? I said no, that I had built it up
from components. He asked if this was the first time activation for this
system and I said no, that I had been using it for several months but due to
part failure I had to replace several components in it. He did not require
any more information regarding what had failed and what I had replace, but
just asked how many systems this software was currently installed on and I
said ONE.
He was satisfied and gave me another 9 fields of six digits each to enter at
the bottom of the on-screen form presented for "automated phone activation".
That done, the system reported that it had successfully activated. Took
about six min total
Very business-like and professional. Thanks Microsoft!