I reinstalled XP Pro on a computer after the hard drive died. I replaced the 20GB hard drive with 2 3GB hard drives. It originially had Windows 98, and I upgraded rather than wipe & install, and I thought I had used the key from a full install. This is for a school and we received several keys at various times, but I had always affixed the key to the PC to make sure it wasn't duplicated (honest). The key was accepted during the installation, however, when I tried activating it, the activation wizard replied that this key was already in use. The activation wizard provided a telephone number and a series of 50 numbers to use to activate XP. So....., I called the number at Microsoft; the phone wizard had me enter the 50 numbers by voice, then told me it could not validate it and forwarded me to live assistance which ended up being a busy signal. I am concerned that this is the standard protocol, so I am worried that I will go through this loop numerous times to no avail. Is it normal to get a busy signal instead of a call queue? Does anyone know of an alternative route I can use to get to Microsoft to resolve this?
Also, could it be that the key I used was for the XP Upgrade instead of full install? I would have thought I would not have been able to proceed if that was the case without providing some sort of information that demonstrated I was upgrading from a previous operating system.
Thanks
Also, could it be that the key I used was for the XP Upgrade instead of full install? I would have thought I would not have been able to proceed if that was the case without providing some sort of information that demonstrated I was upgrading from a previous operating system.
Thanks