Click of Death, Backups, and a Q

musicvid10 wrote on 5/16/2010, 5:15 PM
I have an older desktop computer that has been relegated mainly to storage since my notebook is faster, even for rendering.

I left it on for several days recently, and the 8-y/o WD C-drive clicked itself to death. Unable to recover anything by myself, even by replacing the PCB, and not worth the cost of professional recovery.

I installed XP Pro on another drive in the same computer, restored a not-so-recent backup, and have most of my essential stuff back. What I lost was about a month's worth of documents, and over a year's worth of emails which get downloaded to that machine. No major loss.

This drives home the point for me about backing up my drives, even if I don't use them a lot. My question is, will MS let me activate this new install on a different drive with the same hardware snapshot, or are they going to call it a new installation and charge me $$? Really, the computer is not worth the $100 or so it would cost for a new OS license.

Comments

Steven Myers wrote on 5/16/2010, 5:54 PM
I have several XP licenses.
When I replace a machine completely, I move that copy of XP to the new machine. Never an authorization issue.
I have never replaced my entire DAW. It's always been a drive here, mobo/cpu there, etc. Sometimes XP notices the change and wants to reauthorize, which I have done without any hitches...except once.
This happened because the DAW has used up MANY authorizations. I had to actually call Microsoft. They wanted to know why I had authorized that license so many times. I explained that it was my DAW, I replace components often and also like to do frequent clean installs.
No problem. I figured that license would raise a red flag with every subsequent authorization, but that has not been true.
My point is, with XP Home anyway, MS has not been a hard-ass about that stuff.
srode wrote on 5/16/2010, 6:20 PM
you shouldn't have any problems, I have reloaded XP many a time as well and never had an issue. Food for thought, if you use an email acount with windows live, your mail will never disappear when your drive crashes, it's always there on a sky drive.
gpsmikey wrote on 5/16/2010, 7:41 PM
You should be OK, however, there is an important piece missing from your description - is the XP installed on that machine an OEM version (like Dell etc) or was it a retail copy you purchased ? The OEM version typically can not be moved to a new machine (although a new drive does not count as a new machine). The retail version can be moved legally without problem. There are some numbers that I don't remember for sure - I think if it has been longer than 120 days since you have activated, there is no problem moving it. Less than than, you may have to call M$ and explain, but still should be OK. The key is retail vs OEM (and different OEM licenses have different requirements from what I remember).

mikey
NickHope wrote on 5/16/2010, 8:06 PM
I run OEM XP Pro on my computers and I'm frequently swapping out system drives and have never had a problem with MS validation.
gpsmikey wrote on 5/16/2010, 9:10 PM
Swapping the drive should not be a problem, but I do remember at least in the past that the Dell OEM version was somehow keyed to the BIOS/motherboard and would not run if you tried to move it to a new system. The OEM version typically also has a different EULA.

mikey
musicvid10 wrote on 5/16/2010, 10:34 PM
I should have provided a bit more detail. This is the OEM XP Pro (SP2) Upgrade that was mounted on a homebuilt Win98 machine a few years ago. It's reassuring that you think they'll be lenient. It's only been re-activated a couple of times due to other hardware changes.
gpsmikey wrote on 5/16/2010, 10:50 PM
Here is some additional information that may be helpful in understanding the versions of XP (as well as some additional links to M$ license info). I'm not a lawyer (nor would I want to be one ! )
http://www.infocellar.com/winxp/oem-recover-retail.htm

mikey