Originally posted by RT and his SE:
You'll need that board or one made by FIC because the OS is licensed to that hardware setup. I bought the same machine in the same state, replaced the power supply and MB fired it up and it said the license was no good. Called Emachines and they told me sorry nothing they can do.



Wrong.

eMachines is full of it and just want to push you into there own parts. All you need is a OEM XP disk and you can install just fine.

If you are referring to the activation screen that shows up after a board swap, then this is why....

The activation will show up that it needs to be done IF you get lucky with a board that actually boots the OS without a reinstall. It sees a big hardware change and wants to reactivate because that's the way the OS is designed. Well then here's where the problem happens........

The OS is installed by eMachines using a volume license key, which cannot be activated. There factory restore software is "pre-activated". The key that is built into the OS when you get it from eMachines, is not the key you see on the back of the computer. It's a eMachines used key for thousands of computers. It tries to connect to Microsoft to activate but cannot until you change the key saved in the OS OR reinstall fresh from a Microsoft OEM disk and enter the key on the back of the machine and not the one eMachines used for the restore.

In summary, the key on the back WILL activate just fine, no problems. The key built into the restore partition WILL NOT.

Tony 1998 SVT Contour (B/MB) #542 3L 1998 SVT Contour (SF/MB) #1266 parts car 2000 SVT Contour (SF/MB) #1533 3L swap to begin!