Hello, I am having a similar problem. The recovery partition on my sister-in-law's HP dv5000 notebook, is no longer intact. She was having problems, so her husband took it to someone at his workplace. The problem: this person ignorantly (putting it lightly)
wiped the entire hard drive of all partitions (including the recovery partition) and installed a fresh copy of XP Pro (which is a violation considering that the laptop originally came with, and has a COA sticker ONLY for XP MCE 2005).
Despite the new installation of XP Pro, the laptop is acting very sluggish, and besides that, I advised her that she needs to make her copy of Windows legitimate again. Unfortunately, she does not have her original Recovery CDs, and when I contacted HP to
obtain them, I was informed that they are no longer available from HP. On HP's site, the alternative suggestion is essentially: "Do a google search for the computer's model number and the words recovery cds (e.g. "dv5000 recovery cds") to locate an online
reseller for the Recovery CD set." I did this, and found a site selling the Recovery CDs. In an attempt to get her back up and running again sooner than having to order/wait for the Recovery CDs to arrive (she is a student who needs access to her files), I
located a 3-disc recovery set in ISO format on the Internet, and created the discs.
While she is backing up all of her important files using an Ubuntu Live CD (her Windows installation is practically unusable at this point), I have attempted a test installation on my personal desktop computer, using the CDs I created from the ISO images
obtained . When I arrived at the screen for inputting the Product Key, it would not accept the original key I obtained from the holographic COA sticker on the underside of her laptop, telling me that I had entered an "Invalid Product Key". With no other alternative
(in my testing scenario), I obtained a Product Key from the Web and tried it. This key was accepted and Windows Setup continued the entire installation procedure without a hitch (as I type this, it is showing the Desktop for XP MCE 2005, asking me to activate
Windows within 30 days).
My question is this: Would I encounter the same error message regarding an "Invalid Product Key", had I been installing on her original hardware (her HP dv5000 notebook), or would it either have not even asked for it at all, or at least have accepted the
key as valid? Our goal is to get her notebook back to original factory condition, and equally as important, using a valid license (preferably the one which she already owns). To ask this question in another way: Would it be possible for me to reinstall her
original copy of XP MCE 2005, using the CDs I have created, and her original Product Key, resulting in successful, legitimate product activation?
I apologize for such a lengthy post, however, I wanted those who read this, to have a full understanding of the situation, and not make assumptions of overt software piracy, and also so they would not use my post to rationalize any such actions.
Thank you to all of those who contribute to this valuable community forum.
- Darkest-Nyte -
