Ok,  so,  i have this old gateway  (ATXSTF FED 866)  and the hard drive died a while back,  well,  i didn't need it right away so i just LEFT it in my basement,  now i decided to get it up and running again,  so i got a new hard drive,  and am trying to install windows XP.  first, i discovered that the windows xp home cd, that i had for this computer, was not working for installing windows, it wouldn't let me format the HDD and would SAY i needed a different disk,  well, i happened to have another XP home disc lying around, so i used that,  it formatted and put the files on there no problem,  so now i was in that windows screen as it installed,  then it asked for my name and so on as usual, and then i entered the product key,  and it just stated that it was an invalid product key.    nothing i did changed that,   so i  hard rebooted.    

 Meanwhile,  i looked on the internet on microsoft's website, and they suggested that it could be the CMOS date and time were WRONG.  and that reminded me that i had stollen the  battery out of there for something else,   and eventually replaced it,  but it obviously reset things,  and sure enough in my BIOS the system date is  [MON 01/01/1990]   and through some long research, i discovered that this was, in fact,  incorrect,  and the date was actually  Sat 08/05/2006    lol.  

anyway,   so now i'm in the BIOS and i dont' know how to correct that or what to do,  or even if that's really the problem,  so  thanks alot for any help in advance,  hopefully i can resolve this quickly!!  

specs i know of. . .  
- Pentium III   866 MHz
- Bios version EA8150A.15A.0006.P04
- Memmory = 384 MB  (3 x 128) (PC133)
- currently no OS  as you knowMost BIOS setups display the date and time and have instructions on how to change them, which are usually at the bottom or one side of the display.  Use the arrow keys and tab key on your keyboard to move to the date or time and then press the keys indicated in the instructions to make the changes.right,  so i was trying to use the wrong key apparently  oops!!   so thanks alot fo the quick response,    
 I changed the system time and saved it and it is correct now,  however,  when i tried to install again,  i get the same  message "The Product Id you entered is not valid"   and i can either change it, or hit back a few times,  and do nothing else,   nothing changes that,  so i think i have to do the whole hard reboot thing again,  which i'm sure can't be healthy durring a windows installation,  but  what ever,  there is nothing else i can do from there.    
  
here is that microsoft site which i believe applies to my problem  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q310637

i'm really lost here   any help.Well, if it is says it is invalid and you say it is not, CALL Microsoft and have them advise. There may be something else afoot here.Good advice GX.

 8-)

Doom:

The NUMBER is 1-800-MICROSOFT.