I picked up a virus that crippled my three year old 7510GX Gateway laptop. Here's the issues I'm running into now...

Since I never made back-up copies of XP home with the multiple CDRs that came with the laptop, I had to borrow a bootable copy (cracked probably) from a friend. He had a key, which worked during the installation. However, when I attempted to use the product key on my laptop to register and activate XP home online, the key is not valid. I've attempted to use several keys I've run across through torrent sites and these don't work.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Didn't your laptop come with an XP CD?

I don't use it but maybe you should look at Linux.

You know, I thought it did. But I kind of remember it coming with 6 blank CDRs and some option to create restore discs, and of course I never got around to doing that.
My question: Why wouldn't the product key that's slapped onto the bottom of my laptop not work when registering online?

Well, that product key is probably not for Windows XP, unless it's on a Windows XP label. Usually your Windows XP product key will be on the installation media itself. If it is a Windows XP product key, maybe you're installing a different version of windows XP.

Also, you can do with brainofpea suggested... Unless there's some piece of software you absolutely need that only runs on Windows, you can try Linux, which will basically eliminate spyware and viruses (viri?). I think you can also download a (bootleg) Windows XP virtual machine and run it under Linux if you have to. They say Ubuntu is a pretty good user-friendly distribution, but I've had better experiences with Fedora.

I find myself a different XP Pro copy....

I will take your advice on Ubuntu or Fedora...I bought another laptop drive and will install it on it so I can give it a shot...I guess there's alot of applications available for them? I have itunes, media monkey and other apps to mess with audio files....

Thanks..