Windows OEM Cd-Key

[pedromsouza]

Ok, IBM sent me Product Recovery CD's and I installed correctly. When Windows asks for activation through internet I get the msg "incorrect key". But that's the OEM key, from the COA ticket. I don't know what's wrong....

[jdhurst]

A recovery with a proper set of CD's and a proper technique will never ask for activation.

1. Recovery CD's from IBM have been known to be bad. Happened to me twice on two different machines.

2. Improper technique can cause the recovery to fail. The cure (that I got from IBM) was to break out of the recovery at the first screen (Esc or F3) to a DOS prompt. Run fdisk to see and delete all partitions, then run fdisk /mbr. Then try the recovery again. That has worked for me.

I want to underscore that for T43 and below, a recovery that asks to be activated has not installed correctly. It would be pointless to proceed with such a build. Correct the problem and try again.
... JD Hurst

[pedromsouza]

Problem solved!

IBM recovery media worked fine. Formatted, installed xp, drivers and programs perfectly and automatically.

I called Microsoft and they gave me a code to activate windows.

Thanks