Repairing XP after mobo install

[squeakyknees]

I've read that I can do a repair install of XP from a cd after a motherboard(also RAM and power supply) replacement. The system came originally with just the recovery discs. THey loaded ok but then it tells me Windows won't start because of a hardware change. So if I do a repair with an XP cd will MSoft activate it? The original didn't have SP2 but the OEM cd I have for another machine does. Does that matter? If I loaded the OEM rather than repair it, could I use the product key on the case of the repaired machine?

[glc]

You can do a repair with any OEM CD that's an unrestricted OEM - in other words, not a recovery disk - that's the same version (Home, Pro, MCE). You use the key that's assigned to the machine. You may have to call on the phone, but it will activate.

[squeakyknees]

THanks for the info Just what I wanted to hear.

[ssahl]

you may not even need to run the repair, I was able to install a new motherboard and cpu and was able to just use my same hard drive winxp install.
and I went from an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ to a core 2 duo E6300
the old motherboard was nFORCE chipset and my new one is Intel

[glc]

That's probably because you prepared properly and changed the IDE controller drivers first like I indicated in the repair reinstall thread. If someone is changing a motherboard due to failure, this is not an option.