Ponch

What an incredibly nice family story. I like to call my relatives "users" or "dummies", it makes me feel close to them. Why does the CD have to stay 1st boot device ? Does your administrator one of your relatives say so ?

Video Card "turns on"? I'm confused... lights go on, HDD spins, fan on video card spins... he probably meant they're powered.

For info, not sure it works on 2010; http://thepaisano.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/replacing-the-office-2007-ribbon-bar/

Something stops working you want to uninstall it but you can't Kelsenellenelvian says reinstall THEN uninstall you reinstall, it works now (see point 1) you ask what now ? Looking at (3) the next step is uninstall, but obviously it is you to know if your main goal is solving (1) or doing (2).

I think it's exactly what you are doing since 2 days. Make it "4 days".

If you see an ISO file on your DVD, this is what you did wrong. Check your burning program for a "write IMAGE to disc" function, then select the iso file as the IMAGE to be burned (means applied to), NOT as a FILE to be burned (means written to).

I'm not stating anything. I'm just going on quoting that article that seems serious and gives info about something it apparently none of us has experienced yet but you're insisting MIGHT be a problem for you. I can go on and on, you don't seem to understand anything the article says. I'm not going to spend an hour changing my hardware for you to see if the article was right, I just assume it is and it's you that needs to try. Now we keep telling you that there won't be no problem but you don't seem to believe any of us. So what's the point asking ? Why don't you just try, I don't see any risk? You still have that perfectly working backup anyway. I think it's exactly what you are doing since 2 days. And you'll end up being told to buy any Asus CD/license for XP Home/Pro that you'll find on eBay for $10, that will tick the money waste. Then you'll put that SSD in your netbook, have a cold sweat because XP tells you it found a new hard drive, new volumes etc... needs to reboot,... and ... and... and...that was it.

"if, say, you disable a network connection which uses the NIC and then reboot, you may be missing its three votes" this is (as I wrote before) clearly disabling in Windows. Disabling in Bios would be even more radical (well, one could say "you can't remove it more"). This; "It then calculates and records a number based on the first device of each type" (bold in the article) clearly means only one NIC is considered for that calculation, not two (LAN and WiFi). To reassure you (and almost quote the article "that answers all your questions") in case of a netbook, you are very unlikely to change the display adapter the motherboard the processor type the processor serial number and with the NIC enabled, there you have them, 7 votes. Just wait 120 days to disable the NIC if you really need to. Very simply, I did not assume anything, I asked for the brand, he answered, I read the answer and I believed him. Next time, use ctrl+F. So now also to Submix8c, according to you, what key were they talking about ? Or was the MS guy talking rubbish ? If you install an OEM PC that is preactivated and then (this is basically what the OP was worried about) you change too much hardware for the OS to feel home, is MS expecting you to search the Winnt.sif on your CD for the royalty key ??? Or does that system stay activated whatever happens because the manufacturer's Bios and the OEM file are still there ? I've never been there personally (well, I've changed a lot but not not enough, and if I had, the 120 days rule would have spared me).

The answer is not that "it doesn't work on OEM installs" but that it's not the key he needs to reactivate by phone IF he needs to reactivate by phone which he probably won't. That's the reason why I did not talk about key finders in my 1st answer. Also the article I linked to was answering all of the questions. But for any reason, he hasn't tried yet to run his new XP on SSD. Also maybe Asus can find the unique key on basis of the computer's serial number if he REALLY needs it.

You make it look like you have not read the article at all.

It says that a disabled device does not come in the enumeration at next boot and so the votes are lost. If it is so for a device disabled in Windows, it is surely is for a device disabled in Bios. Also why would you take the risk to disable devices in Bios ? Why do you seems so scared when you can always fall back on your HDD and retry? Why did you call Microsoft ? The key is needed for installation, not for activation. Usually of course, if you have it for installation, you have it for activation. Have you actually tried Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder or have you stopped at the consideration that "it seems such programs do not work on OEM installs". Did you activate the system yourself the 1st time you used it ? Do you still have the install media ?What brand is it ? Have you read about the "120 days" in the article ? When did you change the RAM ?

and it's an old thread as well, I know everybody can get caught but DataCracker is like looking for them.

This article answers your questions pretty clearly.

The trick is to know the minimum info about the order (physically, on the disk), the size and the properties of the partitions that is required to perform that operation if it is possible. Drive letters are irrelevant. Are you booting from an external disk ? Also what has this got to do with "Programming" ?

The problem is... you don't seem that confident in that matter and the way you list the partitions adds to the confusion, as well as the fact E: is now the active partition after you reinstalled your system, which is weird. Always list partitions in physical order. The starting partition scheme is weird as well (that floating 15G partition) , is this how you got it from Asus out of the box or was it already reinstalled before ? Or was it a 2nd hand computer ? Anyway, if it works like that, I'd leave it. You can't merge D in E as D is physically before E. Well, you can do it but in 3 steps; -delete E -move D at the beginning of the unused space, -expand D

Yes you could but merging partitions is a risky business in the sense that there is no way back. It is still not clear what originally (or still) was on the 1st, 2nd and 4th partitions. The 4th one might be a sort of diagnostic partition like Dell has (but they put it as 1st on the disc, I'm not sure Asus makes one). Are you sure the 1st partition is 100Gig, not 100Meg ?

Why do you only provide size for half the partition ? One of them probably was a recovery partition and could have be used to reinstall. Maybe not anymore. When you say your old D: does not appear in Windows anymore, have you checked Disk Management or is it just not showing in Explorer ?

I tried a few things. The car is a Ford and I got it in august this year, so even if the stereo is not top of the range, it's fairly new (and as I wrote earlier, it has a connector for USB device/stick in the glove compartment). It does play audio cd-rw. The cd part does not see m3u files, I guess it only recognizes MP3 and WMA files. It also doesn't read DVDs (with mp3 files on it for instance).

Post the model or the motherboard of your computer and attach the "last session.ini" so someone can check what you should have done and what you have actually done.

You don't "Need some computer guru help please", you need to read forum rule 12, and also, programmer or not, you need to be able to describe your problem way more than you did. See, if you think the replies are irrelevant (obviously you didn't try to understand them), it's fine, you're the one with the problem, but at least them who posted tried to understand your 1st post.

For a portable application, you can check this as well.

You can't fix the install on a physically damaged hard drive. And it looks lke this is your case. It is not a cheaper solution nor is it a solution at all, it's just wasting your time untill you realize it doesn't work. Browsing a disk and testing it is not the same. The problem at this point is that testing your disk will probably kill it and data that might still have been retrievable up to now might be lost after.

The difference I see; -"1 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector" on the old board, -"1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector" on the new board. I'm not sure your PSU has such a 8pin connector nor if there are any workaround to that.

That is quite a poor description of your problem.

I'm not familiar with that at all (and I don't see why you post that in the nLite forum). Why double backslashes in your paths ??? Have you tried simply using both keys for your two locations instead of trying to enter both location in each key ? (might be a silly answer.) Can you explain why automatic search doesn't work ? In what way have you modified Windows ? My DriverCachePath says "%SystemRoot%\Driver Cache", not "%SystemRoot%\System32"