XP won't boot after mobo change 2

[djmtek]

I have a customer who had brought her computer in with a failing hdd (wouldn't boot). Ran chkdsk, repaired bad sectors, etc. and got her up and running. Then, without warning, on a reboot, the mobo went dead. Without going into too many details, I replaced the mobo, but now it just hangs after updating escd successfully. I can't get it to boot to XP. Tried putting an image I made earlier on another drive. No good. Tried resetting bios. No change. Tried "fixboot". Nope. Took everything out except drive, ram, video card (pci) and floppy. Went to a:\ prompt after updating escd.
This is an older computer:
AMD K6-2 500
Asus P5A-B board
No disk or key for xp (says she bought it second hand with xp installed).

Everything is the same except the board, which I replaced with an identical board. What have I overlooked?

 

[kjv1611]

Well, I had once swapped out mobo's, and had to reinstall everything to get my pc to work at the time, but that was with Windows ME.

My suggestion to first try is this: Try booting from Windows XP CD-Rom, make sure you have her name/address, etc, basic registration info, and her Product ID handy.

When the first prompt comes up, asking if you want to do a fresh install or REPAIR Current Windows, choose Repair. Then, just follow the one or two prompts - there are very few. I just did this with one of my pc's, and it worked like a charm - it reinstalled my orig drivers, windows software, etc, and the only change was it fixed some very major problems, and it set at least some of the windows settings to default, but that's better than starting completely over if not a virus!

Try that, and see how it works out. Post back to let us know if it worked or not.

Stephen
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6 KJV

 

[bcastner]

You will have to sell her an XP retail copy. You have several choices, but a reinstallation cannot be avoided:

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/other/motherboard/win2k.htm

 

[djmtek]

I suspect you are referring to doing an install over top of the present install. I would have done this but the problem is, she doesn't have the product ID. When I had it up and running, I should have yanked it. The drive is accessable as a slave on another computer. Any way of extracting this product ID from that? I can do it when I am in a running Windows, but not in this case.

 

[bcastner]

Put the disk back as it was.
Download, make and burn a PE environment. Boot from the UBCD for Windows, and you can then read the key with PE Keyfinder:

http://www.windowsubcd.com/index.htm

 

[djmtek]

I ran keyfinder from boot cd. Had it look in system32\config directory but program just keeps saying it can't load hive. Both "system" and "system.alt" are there. Is this not where I direct keyfinder to look?

 

[bcastner]

I am not certain which of the five hives holds the encrypted form of the key.

My guess was the Security Hive, but I do not know.

You might try AIDA32 on the WinUBCD, as it shows the key as well.

 

[amen1973]

The hive that holds it is the Software Hive.
HKey_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion. It is found in the DigitalProductID. The only problem is that it is encrypted. So hopefully the keyfinder can decipher it which I believe it can since I know the windows version of keyfinder can.

I hope this helps

 

[bcastner]

Thanks amen1973, I was never sure of the hive.
Bill

 

[amen1973]

Not a problem, I was never completely sure of XPs hive either. I knew where to find it on older systems. I had to do a little research to find this answer out Of course there is another way to do it off a running system with the Hard drive of the broken XP added to it. If this does not work I will post a method on how you can try to get the encrypted key.

 

[djmtek]

Thanks Amen. I've now got the key. Tried to re-install with another cd (remember there is no cd). Didn't accept the extracted key. I have XP cds for version 1a and sp2. This key may well belong to a a Volume Licensing installation. I am somewhat familiar with Microsoft's workaround for this but never actually tried it. Any advice?

 

[amen1973]

Well the 2nd procedure I was going to walk you through was adding the client's Hard drive as a slave on your bench computer. Then open Regedit
Before doing this back up the complete registry

select the root key of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Select Registry > Load Hive.

You can now select the offline registry file (e.g., C:\WinNT\System32\Config\Software).

REGEDT32 now asks for the key name to place the Registry hive into. Name it whatever you want

The hive now shows up in the Registry tree and can be edited as any normal hive.

You can then export the digitalProductID from your client's hive. Then export the same key from the bench computer so you have your backup. Edit the client's exported registry key to point to
HKey_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion

Then run keyfinder from

http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

this should show the client's CD key

After you retrieve it, then restore the key you backed up that belongs to your bench computer. Now you can unload the hive by clicking on the hive you loaded via File|Unload Hive

Just a note, I have not tested this myself but in theory it should work hehe

I hope you can follow my giberish. It is late and I am a bit tired.

 

[djmtek]

This is an interesting procedure and I am going to try it just to see if it works, but I have already extracted the product key from the client's hdd using Burrows' UBCD and keyfinder, and that is the purpose of this procedure (Amen1973), right? My goal is now to re-install windowsxp on the clients computer using this key, but using a different cd (we do not have the original cd). I tried to use one of mine but it did not accept the extracted key (unlike the good old days of w98). I have versions of SP1 and SP2 and and an upgrade disk. Client's install appears to be an early version, or a volume licensing install. I know Product keys for XP Home Edition and retail versions of XP Professional will not activate a corporate or OEM version of XP Professional. But should not one home oem version open another? Question: How specific are the product keys to the version (original, sp1, etc) and type (i.e. home vs. pro vs. corporate, etc.)? I assume that the product keys are not "cd" specific.

 

[bcastner]

. The product keys do not change due to service packs;

Find your setupp.ini file in the i386 directory on your Windows XP CD. Open it up, it'll look something like this:

ExtraData=707A667567736F696F697911AE7E05
Pid=55034000

The Pid value is what we're in this for. What's there now looks like a standard default, but that is no good. There are special numbers that determine if it's a retail, OEM, or volume license edition. First, we must break down that number into two parts. The first five digits determines how the CD will behave, i.e. is it a retail CD that lets you clean install or upgrade, or an OEM CD that only lets you perform a clean install? The last three digits determine what CD key it will accept.

Here are the individual values, the first and last values are interchangeable but you should keep them together:

Retail = 51882
Retail Product Key control: 335
Volume License = 51883
VLK Product Key control: 270
OEM = 82503
OEM Product Key Control: OEM

So a PID of 51882335 is a retail license requiring a retail key.

source:

http://www.petri.co.il/use_oem_version_to_upgrade_xp.htm

I will warn you of one other wrinkle: The product key given you by your OEM install is unlikely the same product key that was used by the OEM computer manufacturer at the time of installation. Using SYSPREP images, the OEM often uses a single master key during installation of the image if it uses BIOS LOCK for the image. You are expected to use the unique CD Key provided if you need to reinstall.

 

[djmtek]

Great. Its one of the original 2 pirated copies that microsoft won't allow to install (pkey starts with FCKGW). It appears the customer will need to spring for a new key, although I hate giving up on what has become a rather interesting challenge. Do you suppose an original release cd of xp oem home would do the trick or would I need one of the pirated corporate copies?

 

[bcastner]

The only thing that would work reliably is to purchase a retail copy of XP Home.