XP Second Stage Re-Install and BANG!

An interesting, if infuriating, problem.

I have a customer's XP machine that died.  By carrying out a second stage re-install I managed to get it working agian.  Before re-activating it, I wanted to setup another user.  I logged out, ready to login as the user I setup and on login I get a Microsoft Product Activation message saying that ''This copy of Windows must be activated with Microsoft before you can logon'.  Then have the choice 'Activate Yes/No'.  If you choose Yes, it gets as far as the wallpaper and then logs you out.  If you say No you don't even get to see the wallpaper.

 Having spent a long time trying to recover this machine I don't want to re-format.  I can get into the machine in Safe Mode, but it will not allow you to activate in Safe Mode.

Anyone got a good idea?

Rich

try booting in non-network safe mode to access the user - might be woth creating a 2nd local admin account while there to see if you can loginand activate once fully rebooted

also, as a sbsc member you can post the question to pss at the private managed news groups and get a response normally in 4hrs on us time - for more info, go look at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2006/09/05/Microsoft-Small-Business-Specialists-Community-Managed-Newsgroups.aspx

 

ttfn

 

David

Thanks David.  I followed your advice, and then contacted PSS.  They suggested it might be the 'Reset' virus.  I followed all of the instructions they gve me on microsoft.private.sbsc.windowsclient.windowsxp but there was no sign of the virus.  I have now configured a spare machine for the client to use, so the urgency is gone, but I think I will end up reformatting this one in the end.

 Thanks for your help.

Rich

Richard,

 

the PSS guys will keep the case open with you until it is resolved, so you should be able to take it to a good conclusion.

 

ttfn

 

David

Is it worth considering the installation as symtoms of a corrupt registry? i.e., take the drive out, put into another, open the system volume folder, and extract out an earlier registry etc etc ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/ )

 
while its not an actual registry error, I would try it out just to see if you can go back in time to where you can get up and running and solve what ever it was before it went *** up

 

Terry 

I think you should activate the product with Microsoft  as admin account and then try to create user and login as a user .

Shaw