I'm not sure if this is in the correct forum, but i urgently need some help/advice. A friend of mines bought a PC from a shop that refurbishes personal computers (LAHM Recycle LTD) & paid £130 that she struggled to get together to buy it. The PC is a Fujitsu Siemens Scenic with XP Pro Version 2002 Service Pack 3. It has 1GB ram, an 80GB hard drive, Pentium 4 CPU @ 2.80GHz & the motherboard is a D1761 with onboard graphics. After taking the PC home i remembered i had a spare 80gb hard drive & was intending on setting it up as a slave so she could store her music & pictures etc on it & keep the one that was supplied with the PC as her Windows drive. Needless to say it didn't work as it didn't show up in the BIOS, so i was going to leave it a few days as it wasn't a priority. I took out the spare drive & everything was set up the same way as when she purchased it, but when i turned it on it said since Windows was first installed on the computer, the hardware has changed significantly & due to theses changes, Windows must be reactivated within 3 days. After downloading the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification Tool from my PC & transferring it to her PC via a USB dongle she started to receive notifications in the lower part of the desktop saying her copy of Windows did not pass genuine validation & that her copy was not genuine. But now the 3 days have lapsed & shes now locked out of her computer. The shop didn't provide a Windows disk or a recovery disk & she can't afford to purchase a new Windows CD. I ran SiW (System Information for Windows) & discovered the CoA on the top of the machine doesn't match the one provided by SiW. Isn't it illegal for a shop to sell a PC with a CoA that doesn't match the product key of the version of Windows that's installed on the computer ? Especially if Windows is saying it's not a genuine copy of windows. The CoA on the case is: *****-*****-TFBT2-X9KFK-KRGC8 The one provided by SiW is: *****-*****-8F2R6-QGK3K-C4HG6 Another thing we noticed is that she purchased a T-Mobile USB Broadband Dongle from the T-Mobile shop & when she tried to install it onto the new PC (so she could try & validate the copy of Windows) it didn't work & it said something like transfer feature error or something but the Dongle is working fine on my computer. So have they sold her a dodgy PC & if so what are her rights ? She was hoping to take it back to the shop today & get a refund & have nothing more to do with the shop in question, but she's unsure of what they will say & if they will try & blame it on her for trying to install a slave HDD. :/ Here is a picture of the Microsoft Genuine Advantage Diagnostic Tool if that's any use: Any help is appreciated guys. Thanks
We haven't been in touch with the shop yet but we were going to take the PC back to them today. I forgot to mention i still have the receipt & its under a years warranty. But we're unsure if they'll give her a refund or offer to fix it. She said she would rather have her money back & have nothing more to do with them & i've just found out a few other people have been having problems with them as well. So i'm pretty unsure what to do tbh :/ Someone said to threaten them with the police & trading standards but i'd rather not go down that route if they would just give her the £130 back.
If it's got a warranty bring it back, let them do the work. Tell them you want to see it passing wga check in the shop before you take it away next time and you want the keys to be the same. They might just have made a mistake.
Seems like a lot of hassle to be pretty honest, considering we don't have a car & the shops a few miles away. When you buy a PC you expect it to be fine & it's only been since friday & it's already knackered :/ I'd heard good things about them beforehand as my mates girlfriends laptop screen got smashed & they repaired it for £90 ^ done a good job, that's why i recommended them to my friend for the pc. Now i feel as though it's my fault in a way for recommending her to them. All trust we had for the company has gone out the window. Just wondering if they'll refund her since it's only days old & under warranty & that way she can go elsewhere & buy a PC that will work fine... I also don't understand why it won't accept a USB Broadband modem or a slave drive considering i tried the jumper settings stated on the drive. Cheers
you still have to gibe them the oportunity to go good on the warranty.otherwise you havent got a leg to stand on.i would be inclined not to threaten them just yet either.
To be completely honest, It's normal (although naughty) for shops to take a "ghost" image of another computer and set up new machines with the ghost image. This will "clone" the original computer onto the new one... perfectly fine if the system specs are identical, as all the srivers etc will marry up completely... however.. there are a couple of proviso's with this. Big manufacturers, such as dell, hp, asus etc. will have a "bulk" key that they use (with authorisation), so when you get your new pc, the installed licence key will almost always be different to your COA sticker. this IS normal. the COA sticker usually only comes into play when you re-install windows. now the issue here is that it became common for naughty people to take out the dell hdd, and put it in another machine, re-installing the OS on the dell machine (with new hdd) this would (in theory) give you two activated copies of windows on two seperate machines. this is why they introduced the WGA thingy. on occasion, some machines fail the WGA where they should pass. you're one of the unlucky ones. is your machine a "brand name" or a custom? if it's a custom, this will likely be the reason. It's been a while wince I tinkered with XP, but from where you are there should be a route to re-input a new licence key.. simply put in your licence key off the COA sticker, et voila, you should be up and running again with no problems, or need to re-install. with regards to the original disc, this is a grey area.... I dont think they are obliged to give you a disc anymore.. down to volume licensing rules etc. however, they should have set up a "recovery partition" on your hdd... maybe a second (quite small) partition of say 100GB or so. this will be a ghost/clone of the factory installed OS, so you should be able to recover/reinstall from this partition.. post if you're interested on how to do this. I dont think the shop you bought it from has done anything wrong, although I think that they are morally obliged to help you out with this issue. I hope this helps, be interested to see how it turns out. Russ
There are utilities that can recover your COA before you are shut down. I have heard that Windows utility doesn't always work correctly. Still, I concur with everyone else let the shop get it going for you and have it validated at the shop. Then run a back up so you can restore if you have problems. I also concur the shop may not have done anything illegal.
