I thought of reinstalling WinXP on my HP Pavilion ze5200 cto notebook since it was a complete mess. I reinstalled everything, downloaded and installed the drivers from HP but I got stuck up when I tried to activate my WinXP installation. I don't really understand why I should activate whenever I reinstall this product though I paid money for this WinXP.
I entered the product key that is found at the bottom side of the computer and tried to activate. But it failed and complained that I am entering the wrong key. I tried 2, 3 times and really got fed up. Luckily I got my internet working and there was a telephone nearby. I checked for activation telephone support in Japan. Got the number, called and waited in a long queue before I got connected to a Japanese lady. She started asking hundreds of questions like the make of the computer, some auto generated ID and finally my product key. She then told me to enter a new 20digit key and I successfully activated my copy of win xp.
Imagine what will happen if I don't have internet to active my win xp and don't have a phone number nearby or my product key is lost. I will end up installing winxp once in every 30 days.
I googled and find out this simple solution as a work around.
If we install the same winxp on the same machine, before formatting/installing copy "c:\windows\system32\wpa.dbl" and keep it safe in a floppy disk or a cd-rom.
Once the software is installed copy back wpa.dbl to the same location and no need to activate the product again.