New build. WD Hard drive. XP Home operating system. Enter key to register product (WindowsI mean) and says it's invalid. Called Microsoft who says my key is correct, but gives me a new one anyway. Still says it's invalid. Microsoft says it's a hardware reading issue. That makes no sense at all to me, but what do I know? Does this make sense to anyone else? If so it HAS to be hard drive related, no?

As alweays I appreciate the help.

Greg

could be some data corruption somewhere. memory issue, etc that would cause the code translator to be wrong.

otherwise it could be that your key doesnt match the installation media. for instance you have an XP oem code, but your disc is XP SP2 media. something like that is possible.

Corruption makes sense and presumably a reinstall would resolve that, no?
I mean otherwise how do I know where the problem lies? I can't ask for RMA's on everything.

Thanks,

Greg

I bet its the version issue... like you have the right key... but for a different version of windows

Not sure what that means. It's an OLD SP 1 version of windows, and seperatly I have an SP 2 Update disk. But microsoft is confirming the key, and then giving me a new key. I've used the CD with the key on an earlier build as well. Am I misunderstanding?

Thanks

Greg

Not sure if this applies here but, a few years back I noticed when overclocking that if my cpu was very unstable I could sometime get to the xp loging screen but xp reported my password as wrong every time and would crash shortly there after.

It's an extreme example but it shows that something like this is possible when there is an unstable component in your system.

Still, I think it's more probable that this is an issue with the version of your OS, emphasis on probable.

Double check your bios configuration, you never know what could go wrong with a new build.

Hmmm just use Linux kidding thats a weird issue, I would try reinstalling and running some sort of bootable ram test CD (there are too many to download online just pick one, I recommend Memtest86)

Maybe run the ram test first then do the reinstall if your ram comes up clean

Edit: and if after all that your computer still will not load XP, try loading up a version of Linux (just for testing purposes) if that works then maybe its your Windows disk ? a scratch at just the right bit....