XP re-install over pirated oem

[ryoko]

TO make a long story short - I fell victim to a pirated oem XP Pro that was given to me 5 yrs ago. Am upgrading a Dell Win 98SE bought new Seagate and installed it and found myself becoming a research analysis to everything on pirated OS from MS (oem installed beautifully until I tried installing SP2 cd)

Went legit and bought a XP Pro oem w/SP2 (has COA etc). Doing a clean install by deleting previous partition of bad oem XP.
Everything looked normal until I got to product key code - MS box comes up that its invalid. Online store asks if a MS 800# came up with it, and it doesn't. Said they'd send a new sealed copy out, but I am wondering if something is leftover from the bad oem XP? (ie. is it my own fault for this invalid box?)

I saw Seagate has a disc wizard utility that would "wipe out everything to zero" and make the harddrive all fresh and clean. Would this work better than clean installed partition?
What cautions should I look into before doing this?
When doing a clean install by deleting the partition doesn't everything of the previous OS go bye-bye? ie like ghost key codes...
I just wanted to make sure the invalid box wasn't my fault for previously installing a bad XP on the system.

Lastly the oem with SP2, I am assuming when I type the product code in it's automtically checking for pirated software matches in that SP to pull up that error box?
Sorry for the long dialog - thanks for all replies!

[glc]

A zero fill with Disc Wizard will definitely clear out all remnants from the hard drive.

You are probably just mistyping the code - M$ makes it hard to tell the difference between B and 8, G and 6, 2 and Z, etc. This code IS on a holographic COA sticker and the CD is a genuine M$ holographic CD, right?

[ryoko]

Yes- I checked the CD on MS website and it matches everything MS asked in this mini-quiz for the CD. The COA is not holographic - it has the blue/white patterned background the holographic silver tab runs down the right side and matches pretty much what MS on their website for Identification. The product code, though small, is clearly printed - though I did have hard time reading Q.
I typed the code in 4 times getting the invalid error each time, no 800# was listed, thus why I had suspicion the remenants of the previous XP might have been the culprit.
Will use the Seagate zero program and see how it goes from there.
One thing I read from another mesaage board - someone mentioned typing the numbers from the number pad should not be used when entering the product key - anyone ever hear of this?

[ryoko]

Okay! The Seagate cd erased all my problems - I told Seagate to format with NSFS and when I set-up the XP pro oem it loaded faster. I did not use the number pad when putting the product key in and it worked.

Now you brought up something about hologram on CD and I did miss an item. The Microsoft logo show geniune in ribbons across the world logo. On MS website it says its suppose to be in big letters across the MS logo. Also looking at the COA I spent 20 min on MS webpage on How to Tell on the different COA's. The verison is 5.1 Build 2600 xpsp-SP2. MS website wizard says the OS is not suspicious, there are so many freaking COA labels and MS does not show many oem versions how does anyone know with the new SP2 oem's if they're legit?
I have the wavey copper cd. man the thing has so many holograms and weird wavy ones I sure would consider it suspicious.