motherboard swapped and windows wants to re-activate

swapped out my dying 9860 motherboard with a 9890 motherboard and windows does not want to load up because it demands to be re-activated. well, it is giving me an incorrect activation code or whatever and i called ms but they could not help me. this was an original oem windows installation by sager a few years ago when i bought the laptop.

i can load into safe mode but not normally. would hate to re-install everything. i did flash the generic bios to sager's bios.

edit;

looks like i may be sol here. found this out about oem windows. but, what do the poor folks with dying 9860 motherboards do about this?

OEM versions
Restrictions of specific license types may limit the foregoing. OEM versions of Windows XP are licensed together with the hardware with which they are purchased, as an entity, and such a copy may not be moved to a different computer. Also, other specific license types (e.g., Academic licenses) are handled in different ways. These aren’t a WPA issue per se, but rather an issue of the license for that purchase, and therefore outside the scope of this discussion of WPA.

There are two versions of OEM Windows XP systems. One can be purchased separately, with qualifying subsidiary hardware, and installed with that hardware to an existing machine, to which it becomes bound. The software may be reinstalled and reactivated indefinitely as with a retail system as long as it is still on the original machine. It may not be transferred to a different computer. It is activated as described above, but if it were installed to hardware seen as not substantially the same, the activation would be refused as falling outside the license.

In the other OEM form, the system is provided pre-installed by a major supplier. Instead of activation, the system is ‘locked’ to the BIOS on the motherboard. The validity of this lock is checked at boot. As long as this is satisfied, other hardware may be changed freely, but any replacement motherboard must be for a compatible one supplied by the original maker.

If a BIOS-locked system is installed to a board where the lock fails, it enters a normal Activation process at startup. However, beginning 1 March 2005, the Product Key supplied on a label by the computer manufacturer, and used for the initial intallation, will not be accepted for activation. A new copy of Windows XP, with a license allowing installation on a different machine, will be needed. This means that any replacement motherboard (or upgrade to its BIOS) must be supplied by the original maker, who will ensure the lock is maintained.

 

that is the key there... OEM! The way OEM windows works is there is an identifier on the board that says "Hey, I am this brand" so windows checks what brand it is being distributed on and if they match, it works, if they dont', no worky. Simply said, if you changed your MoBo then you will need to buy a retail copy of windows or get a new key. Did you buy the MoBo from Sager? if you did, ask if they have a cd to flash the the board to oem. I know Dell provides the disk with MoBo's purchased from them. May just need to ask.

 

sager does not sell motherboards so i bought it from the supplier that they buy it from. it obviously came with a generic bios so i flashed it to the 9890 bios from sager as in hopes windows would think it's the same machine.

the funny thing is that when my first first 9860 died within warranty sager gave me a new laptop and they swapped out my hard drives so i do not lose any data or forced to do a fresh instal. now about a year after that the 9860 died again and i did the motherboard instal myself. the sager recover cd that came pre-installed on my laptop works, though. so if that recognizes it is a sager machine then why not windows? there must be something that can be done. with all these 9860 defective motherboards that plauged the initial d900 series it is unfair for the end user to buy another copy of windows.

 

just call Microsoft and tell them that you had your board swapped.

they will give you new activation.

thats it.

 

I have found M$ hard to deal with in these matters. The disk that Dell gave out with their MoBo's didn't flash the bios. The information is kept on a different chip. Try asking them to send you a cd that they send with new mobo's (to put this information on it). I know dell is very versed in what disk this is since it happens a lot. If they can't help, try the M$ death trap and see if they will help you. I am sure they will if you bug them enough but like I said, I have had bad experience getting to someone that knows what they are doing there.

 

called ms again and they gave me the activation code so all is good now.

 

I talked to the robot when I called for a new activation code. It was really quite simple. Did you use her or an actual person?

 

live person.

 

i believe the OEM versions of Vista (the ones manufacturers use) are stuck to the mobo so if you swap it, u gotta activate.