I have replaced the hard drive on a PC which has a windows XP licence on the case and been formatted but even though on set up I put in the key at set up stage, when i got to activate it says the code isnt valid as it presumably can see the old hard drive had a different code?

I have a magic jellybean code viewer and its reads correctly on this as per the sticker.

Is there any way round this rather than ring up Microsoft India? as per the prompt on screen as thats a bit of a pain.

Ash

 

IF this is a legitimate licence then call Micro$oft Toll Free as it says.

Its very simple, its a free phone number and they read you back the authorisation code.

Taks 5 mins tops. I know as I had to do it with Vista activation Monday evening.

I didnt get India, I got Switzerland and a very pleasant sounding young lady

 

The actual pc might have a license but when you take out and replace the hard drive thats as good as it being a new pc, although it still has the same motherboard so i cant see why it wont accept the old key.
As Adrian said just ring them up thats your only option anyway

 

It doesnt accept it due to bizarre activation policies that M$ have in place.

Glad all the XP installs I do are on a corporate licence key so dont have this issue.

 

Same here