I routinely swap hard drives in and out of my systems, since it's quicker and easier than expansion. I've been doing this sort of thing ever since drives took a hand truck to move around. Now every couple of times I swap a drive in (NOT THE C: DRIVE!) I have to call Microsoft and talk to somebody who I can barely understand... they have me read of about a gazillion numbers, and then they read new numbers back to me to allow XP to operate my "new system." Has anyone gotten fed up enough to find a way to bypass this idiotic definintion of a "new system?" --- I'm tired of making the calls! I had an extensive discussion with a Microsoft Supervisor named Claret, who had me write down this quote, "ANY changes of hardware, or upgrade of system software, will require a call." He didn't actually seem awfully familiar with computers or what swapping out a non-system drive means, but he was absolutely sure that it should require a call, just like upgrading Windows does.

"Now every couple of times I swap a drive in (NOT THE C: DRIVE!) I have to call Microsoft"..... Swapping out your secondary drive should not require re-activation. My sig is on sabbatical.

Where I used to work I built a number of systems with Windows XP that for security reasons required a removable bay for the single drive in the system. Each computer had two C: drives that could be swapped out. Each of the two drives had Windows XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro installed and activated seperately. Any time I swapped out the first drive and substituted the second neither Windows or Office complained. The drives were even different brands and sizes!

the only difference between the drives would be the signature. the ms tech was incorrect. You are supposed to be able to make up to three changes in HARDWARE. Hardware is not the drives! Its mainboard, cpu, video card, etc. Otherwise every time I repartition or wipe my slave drive I would have to reregister. after all it has to get a new signature. then think about multiboot where different OS are doing their thing. No problem. I don't think we have the whole story here. Golly gee wilerkers everyone! Learn to Internet Search

wanderer said: > You are supposed to be able to make up to > three changes in HARDWARE. Check this out: Windows Product Activation (WPA) on Windows XP http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php

Soloution to the “Swaping problem” build a Raid mirror and you can remove the drive any time and/or rebuild at any time the raid array to keep it current so you don't have to call MS snoopy880

I have an XP PC with a swappable 2nd drive bay which I use for routinely testing customer's hard drives, extracting data etc. I've had it set up like this for over a year now - regularly has 4 or 5 different drives slaved each week & I haven't had activation problems once. The main drive is untouched, fully updated with SP2 etc. so I know you shouldn't be having these problems if it's only the slave drive you're swapping. You must have a hardware issue which is causing the reactivation problem. "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."