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Posted By : Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on December 16, 2003

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My computer is froze up in the set up mode of installing windows xp.It is saying the 25 digit access code is invalid. What do i need to do it is a copy that i got from someone else.How do I install another windows like 98 or something else.when i start the computer it takes me to the set up attomaticlly it want let me do nothing else.

This question was answered on December 16, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


There are two things that you can do First, copy down the 25 digit number given to you by the Windows XP software Call the number given to you for Microsoft and upon calling them you can say that you experienced an exemption 0E or a general protection fault in which you needed to reinstall Windows The Microsoft representative would then say, "okay, here is a new registration key." However, you should not be using bootleg software in the first place

Second solution, go into your BIOS by continuously pressing the DEL key (F10 if the computer is an old Compaq), then go into ADVANCED SETUP and configure the boot sequence Make sure that the first boot device is the FLOPPY DRIVE Save & Quit from CMOS and then enter a WIN98 or WIN ME boot disk into your floppy drive You will shortly get a menu that will give you options of how you wish to start your system Choose number 3 (Start computer without CD-ROM support) for now Once you do that, the computer will load basic tools into a virtual disk drive After everything is said and done you will then get a command prompt (A:\) in which you will type in FDISK A short menu will display that will allow you to erase your partition to start the reinstallation of a different operating system I recommend erasing all partitions and starting from scratch to minimize future partition corruptions and or other Windows based problems Once you have created your partition you will need to format it WIN98 uses the FAT32 file system, so if you go back to your partition and see anything else, then something was wrong Anyway, I am very confident that this will solve your problem Lengthy as it may be, it is always better to be safe rather than sorry, especially with a computer system.

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Posted by Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on December 16, 2003

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