Windows XP activation

[Ratsock]

Hi all,
I put windows xp pro on my computer a while ago....(30 days ago....does this number sound like it relates to win xp in any way??........uh-oh)
Anyways, you guessed right!!!! My activation period ran out while i was cramming for my university exams.
Now i need to get windows off it and reload it.

WHAT DO I DOOOOO!!!!!!!!
I can\'t make a boot disk on that computer since it wont load up!!!!
I got a Win98 boot disk from 30 days ago. I put that in, I loaded up DOS. But when i try to access my hard drive, it only accesses the slave as c drive. Is this because the slave is in fat32 format while my master is ntfs? Would the 98 boot disk fail to recognise the ntfs and allocate the slave as c drive because its the only HDD it finds? In windows, the slave was still listed as D drive while master was C drive. This is the part i find confusing.

I can also prolly get access to a win xp boot disk from a friend. This SHOULD be the same as me making one on my version of win xp shouldn\'t it??

PLEEEEEZE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks a bunch all.

[jedig33k]

I think you are in some serious trouble friend.  The only way you will be able to gain access to your machine is activate Windows XP Pro. Your Windows 98 boot disk is not going to help you, because it will only see Fat partitions. The whole reason behind NTFS is for security, preventing someone from accessing you hard drive via boot floppy and having access to your files.

If you happend to make and image of your system before the 30 day\'s. Then you can go into your BIOS and set back the date 30 day\'s and re-image your machine. This has worked for me when I was working with Beta XP.

If you backed up all of your data, just re-install XP and you get another 30 day\'s.

[Ratsock]

Ok, the other win XP boot disk dun work either
I can only think off taking out the master hard drive and formatting it on another computer into fat format and chucking it back then installing win 98.
Does anyone have any better ideas which aren\'t so hardware based?
Thanksa bunch y\'all

[Ratsock]

Ok, i got a working boot disk that lets me use my cd driver etc. in do as well from www.bootdisks.com (i love the internet http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />
what next?
i can remove the ntfs partition using fdisk?

[Anonymous]

Did u try booting into safe mode