Thinkpads Forum

Was just reading about CD Key's,
ihave install a new hard drive in my t61

i have only xp pro oem cd, but this cd dont acept my code from laptop. My license is for xp prof, so they are the same.
what can i do? I dont have recowery cd.

i read in a post on this forum that the CD key found on the bottom of the machine and your 'real' CD key are not the same.

The post I found said use 'Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder' software to determine your 'real' CD key.

mayby i schood talk with someone who have t61 and can read and send me this key? they are same for all t61 i think...

is it legal when i will do this like that?


Thanks,

To do it legally, you need a set of recovery CD's. Other OEM licenses are not valid. You can buy recovery CD's on eBay and sometimes here. ... JDH

The Windows XP Pro license numbers on the bottom of my T4x computers work just fine with an OEM XP pro CD from microsoft. The numbers are very small, are you reading them correctly (eg, B vs 8, O vs 0)?

Why not make a set of recovery discs and they will take care of all that for you?

carbon_unit wrote:Why not make a set of recovery discs and they will take care of all that for you?

Good point - can you put the old drive back in and make a set of recovery disks?

I cant make this beaocorse i format my old disc.....

If you have a T61, then that is a fairly recent computer. The problem is most likely that you don't have an SP2c version of WinXP Pro OEM on CD. Last year, Microsoft began to run out of product keys for Windows XP Professional OEM, and so they had to release a new "version" of the OEM SP2 slipstreamed installation disc that accepted a new range of product key values. The old discs don't recognize these keys as being valid.

See if you can get hold of a copy of Windows XP Pro OEM SP2c. More information is available at the following Microsoft website:

http://oem.microsoft.com/public/seo/winxp_sp2c.htm

Alternatively, you could avoid using the OEM key on your T61's COA sticker altogether by using the universal Lenovo BIOS-signature OEM key for Windows XP Pro with your existing Windows XP Pro OEM CD. I posted some information about it here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 176#410176

If you have no way of obtaining this key, please PM me and I would be happy to supply it to you. If you use this key in combination with ANY Windows XP Pro OEM CD to install Windows to a Lenovo computer, it will not require you to activate your installation. I would post it to the forums except that I don't know what the mods would say to such an act on my part (though I don't see why it would be a problem...the key only works on Lenovo computers anyway).

The only thing I don't know is whether Microsoft uses different key sets for different geographic locales; therefore, the Lenovo key that I have may only work for US English versions of WinXP Pro OEM. YMMV. It's worth a shot anyway, I think.

-- Nathan