XP new mobo, can't activate windows XP

jstaron7

Hi,
It started when Northbridge fan froze and fried my ABIT mobo.

Bought mobo from ebay and wonder if there is something wrong with it. Noticed a default setting was "Aggressive" instead of "Optimal" Also, date set to Thur, April 0, 2008 is actually a Saturday! Read my Athlon XP 3000+, 2.16GHz as 1050MHz. However, it seems to work fine.

XP would not load because I need to activate windows. Can't activate windows because I can only log in using "safe mode" and get a message "cannot activate in safe mode. In normal mode hard wired mouse locks up at log on.

Screwed around for two days trying to access windows. Bought $50 Bootable CD from Spotmau, which boots up, but freezes when I try to recover windows. Also tried Bart's PE Builder which seems to focus on service pack 1 and gives me a "load needed DLLs for kernel.

Now I can't boot up and only get a dos message "Windows could not start because of an error in the software".

Troubleshooting"
CMOS was reset
BIOS sees drive
Last known good boot did not work

Please advise,

Joe

rapture

When you boot up normally what happens? Any blue screens? Are any drivers or files names when it crashes?

Ryder

Joe,

Is the motherboard the same one that you previously had? or a different model?

SATA hard drive or IDE?

jcortes

have you just tried to repair it rather than recover it from the recovery console? Which I think is what your doing if I'm not mistaken, at least thats what your post sounds like. Boot from the CD let everything load. At the first screen you are going to want to press Enter rather than R. Then press F8 to agree to the EULA and you should be brought to a screen that lists your windows installation if it doesn't at this point you can press R to repair the installation. I don't know if you have tried this or not but I'm just going off of what i can get from your post.

To bypass the Safe Mode activation request. Boot to Safe Mode With Command Prompt after it gets you to the DOS screen enter explorer.exe. This will start the explorer and you should be able to use it. It worked for me when I was stuck in an activation loop at one time.

bullzisnipr

to activate after completing major hardware changes i.e. motherboard changes, i typically activate via phone. once you get connected go through the computer for the first few options like "are you at the activation window?" stuff like that. when the computer asks for the first group of numbers say "representative" it will confirm that you want to transfer and just press 1 for yes 2 for no. once you get connected to a microsoft representative they will take you through the process of reactivation, simply tell them that xp is only installed on that one computer and that this is a reinstallation and they will provide you with a new activation code.

EDIT: i didnt realize your mouse is freezing, i would take jcortes' advice and do a repair load, this wont activate windows but it will install new drivers for your new hardware and replace corrupted files, it's your best bet...