XP Media Center 2005 Installation Assistance

Hello All,
I am brand new to this forum and in dire need of some assistance. For several days now, I have been strugglinging to install Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. I have gone thru this forum, read many sticky and cant make heads or tails of what I am doing or how I should be doing it.

A buddy of mine's laptop basically "crashed" where windows would no longer boot. I told him to bring it over and I would reinstall MCE 2005 for him, using the Microsoft provided key located on the bottom of his HP PavilionDV5000 Laptop. Another buddy of mine has a subscription to Technet where we were able to download MCE 2005 CD1 and CD2 (en_winxp_mce_2005_cd1.iso and en_winxp_mce_2005_cd1.iso)


I burned cd1 to a cd, inserted it into the said laptop and proceeded with the install. It proceeded as normal;

• At Welcome scrren chose setup XP installation
• Acknowledged the license agreement
• Chose install fresh copy without repair
• Deleted the existing Partition
• Created the new partition
• Formatted the new partition
• setup copied files to HD
• XP GUI setup appears
• configured Name and Org
• And then the license key windows appears. Now the not so fun begins

During this entire time during the install, I have noticed that it is constantly showing "Windows XP Professional", not sure why, but I went along with it. I attempt to enter the license key as shown above in the sticker on the bottom of the laptop and it return "The CD Key you entered is not valid".


So now I come to MDL, where I have come before to solve some issue. However this one, I think is now over my head. I have visited

• hxxp://forums.mydigitallife.net/forums/5-Windows-XP-Previous-MS-Operating-Systems - to read the Stickys
• hxxp://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/26911-The-Windows-XP-Repository
• hxxp://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/9795-The-Windows-XP-OEMBIOS-Archive?

I have downloaded the OEMBIOS tool and it produces:

• Hewlett-Packard Company OEMBIOS.CAT CRC32=00A1EECB
• Hewlett-Packard Company OEMBIOS.CAT CRC32=3BA155E1
• Hewlett-Packard Company OEMBIOS.CAT CRC32=CD4E1902

I have tried to download the OEMBIOSlist as on hxxp://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/9795-The-Windows-XP-OEMBIOS-Archive which points to hxxp://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=27403b80697f63830f3adcb85bb41ddb&loc=hxxp%3A%2F%2Fforums.mydigitallife.net%2Fthreads%2F9795-The-Windows-XP-OEMBIOS-Archive&v=1&libid=1359733858960&out=hxxps%3A%2F%2Fskydrive.live.com%2F%3Fcid%3D19ac037211016ca5%26id%3D19AC037211016CA5!212&ref=hxxp%3A%2F%2Fforums.mydigitallife.net%2Fthreads%2F6077-VLK-and-OEMBIOS-changer&title=The%20Windows%20XP%20OEMBIOS%20Archive&txt=hxxps%3A%2F%2Fskydrive.live.com%2F%3Fcid%3D19ac0...7211016CA5!212&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13597378886904 but the file is no longer available
My buddy is not able to locate the Origianl OEM CD's so that is out of the question, HP does not offer them any longer for ordering, and there was not a second hidden partition containing the "rescue" area.

Can anybody help me successfully install MCE2005 back onto his laptop? For my scattered brain, it may have to be in "Installing for Dummies" terms .

Thanks in Advance for anyone that has time to assist me

 

Hello Redroad,
I have run the OEMBIOS test that you linked to. It produced 3 out lines as indicated

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

also, I have all the link to the tools I mentioned above, however, my status needs to be at 20 before I am allowed to post this links. So you you have a status of 20 or more and would like to post them for me, I would be happy to PM you them.

Thanks
Gary