[jlau]

I have a Dell 8100 and I was told by CompUSA that my motherboard was going bad, so i thought I would upgraded the motherboard and CPU and reuse all the other components. I replaced the motherboard with a MSI PM8M2-V Socket 775, the CPU with an Intel Celeron 341 2.93 Ghz 533FSB Socket 775, CPU fan, and new power supply. When I start up the system, it gives me a fatal error screen which says that it cannot read the harddrive due to a virus or problem with the harddrive. I have all my data backed up, so I thought it would be a good chance to reformat the harddrive and start from scratch. So I attempted to load the recovery disk with Windows 2000. It gave me a message saying that it could not load on this system since it was not a Dell. How does it know that I did not use Dell upgrade parts? Is there a way around this or am I going to have to buy a new OS? I would appreciate any help.

Jeff

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you're going to have to buy a new os

The windows disk you have is hard coded to a specific machine (an OEM version) and the license extends to the computer, not the user.

You could argue that this is the same machine, but legally Dell would argue the main componants of a machine are the motherboard and CPU.

Dell alters the windows install disk to only recognize it's hardware.

[gerryf]

you're going to have to buy a new os

The windows disk you have is hard coded to a specific machine (an OEM version) and the license extends to the computer, not the user.

You could argue that this is the same machine, but legally Dell would argue the main componants of a machine are the motherboard and CPU.

Dell alters the windows install disk to only recognize it's hardware.

[warriorscot]

You would be as well upgrading to XP anyway with your new system.