Activation window dead
- From: SFHandyman <SFHandyman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 04:41:22 -0800
I had a BSOD. (I had a 19' LCD and just added a 21' wide screen LCD -
replacing a 15" LCD- I think it's too much for my buggy video card and some
intense photoshop work BSOD'ed the system) When I rebooted. I had some kind
of disk error on my boot disk. It's a RAID0 2 disk configuration. (I have a
RAID1 for critical data and two storage disks also one sata one IDE all work
fine and didn't lose any data). I also had let my Norton Run SW out about two
weeks prior. I tried to get Chkdsk and Norton Disk Doctor to fix the error
but it was in "Security Descriptors" and neither could fix it - Chkdsk
wouldn't recognize it during the reboot check (still booted into XP fine
though) Norton would just give up part of the way through. My DVD drives were
also no longer recognized and neither WindowsXP nor I could find the drivers
on the hard drive. I think part of Windows got dumped during the BSOD. Some
chipset drivers (hence the C drive and DVD drive problems) and I think also
some system restore files.
I could still boot up, though it sometimes said it didn't recognize the boot
disk, and would restart a second time but that would open winXP fine. System
Restore wouldn't work (I suspect those files were among the damaged). At one
point during attempted restores - all of my restore points simply
dissappeared.
So I got my external DVD-ROM and it was able to access the system through
USB 2.0. I used it to try and do a WinXP restore but windows wouldn't
recognize my boot drive (probably chipset drivers). I loaded my chipset
drivers on a floppy with my external DVD and my motherboard disk and was able
to reload some of them. That brought back one of my internal DVD Drives. I
then tried to do another XP restore but it wouldn't recognize that corrupted
boot drive (the C drive would continue boot into windows fine the whole
time).I bought and installed the New Norton Systemworks Premier, cleaned up
any remaining errors (no viruses or spyware) and finally was able to reload
all the drivers for my chipset in safe mode (I built this computer). I guess
rebuilding the chipset drivers got CHKDSK working again and I was able to
restore my C Drive Raid0 set - it restored a lot of files from lost chunks
during the repair. Everything is back to normal and working great (no restore
points though) but it needs to be reactivated and the reactivation tool is
the only part that still seems dead! Now it is down to 2 days. I didn't
change any hardware but that's the reason reactivation is giving for the need
to reactivate and why only 3 days? (well the buggy Primary DVD-ROM died and I
swapped it with my secondary DVD-ROM that came back).
But the Activate tool is dead. I click on activate and it opens a blue popup
window (dark blue on top and bottom - medium blue center with some ghosted
looking keys graphic on the right) with a broken image in the upper right
corner (a frame with a white box containing a red X). But nothing else. No
writing, no options. Just the empty window. I don't know a phone number or
have anyway of getting the tool to work. Activation was simple when I
originally built the computer a couple of years ago. But that Activation tool
must have been corrupted during the BSOD. I've tried running the activation
command from the Run Prompt oobe/msoobe/a. And it pops the blank blue window
open again. So I'm stuck.
I bought a new video card to replace the buggy one but don't want to start
the removal of the old one and cleaning up it's old tracks (it was an ATI
with a TV receiver so there is crap all over). It would probably take 2 days
just clean all of it's traces off, and then reinstall the new Video Card. I'm
afraid that WindowsXP would shut down on me before I got that finished. Until
I get it reactivated, I can't get this inadequate Video Card swapped and i'm
risking another BSOD.
I don't even know what the activation telephone number is - I'm in San
Francisco areacode 415. I've just got a number of Hours left.
By the way, I'm very technical - I built my last two computers from scratch
and own two others that I should get rid of. All have their own purchased
copies of windows (well two were OEM from a Manufacturer - although I
purchased a retail copy of XP for the one that came with ME). The two I built
last. I bought OEM WindowsXP along with my Motherboard, case, drives and
memory at the same time. First time I've had a problem - I do have 3 original
XP disks but I was postive that I kept them separate and know which disk
belongs to which computer. I'm stuck. Help - thanks.
.
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