sounds complicated for a newby.
spending the budget on the hw for this 1st time build and trying to hang on to the hdd for the xp for a little while yet. ill see if i can research how to repair it. just guessing but, something to do with chipset?
the oem key passed
I agree, I've done it myself.The online activation won't work for an OEM copy of XP, You'll have to call up microsoft (use the toll free number) tell them that you had to reformat or the motherboard died and you replaced it with a similar one or something and they should activte it for you.