I have upgraded my pc motherboard, and used a genuine XP disc to repair the existing file, I didnt want to reformat.
It asks me to activate windows, I press yes to activate, it then says windows is already activated, and takes me to the welcome screen. When I then try to log in it tells me that windows needs to be activated.
This just cycles through each time and I cant get any further than the welcome log in screen.
I have put the key in when installing.
I am assuming that it has just got confused, do I need to deactivate the key and is there any way to do this without logging in.
I have tried in safe mode, and safe mode with networking. I can get safe mode with command prompt up, but I am unsure how to progress beyond this

I would prefer not to have to reinstall windows or format if possible.
I am using xp home edition
Any help greatly appreciated

Hello toe2toe

What type of disk was used to install originally?

The same disc, genuine xp home edition, although it was on sp3 OS before the install

No what I'm trying to ascertain is it an OEM disk that came preinstalled on the computer?

I assume so, it was in a sealed packet with the PC

Ok does it say something along the lines of "For re-installation of XP on a Dell (example) PC only", on the disk?

You're the second person to have this same problem in the last 3 days. Take a look at this thread and try some of the fixes. If they don't work then we can try something else. If you follow the first link that I gave the other person it will take you to another thread on a different forum site and if I remember right if you go towards the bottom of that thread it tells you how to fix it when you can't log in to windows any longer.