How To Get New HDD To Activate Windows Without Wiping It
Feb 4, 2016
So i have 2 hard drives. one is an old one with windows 7 still on it, and the other was new with nothing on it. I took out the old one with windows 7 on it but didn't wipe it, and put in the new one. I installed windows 10 on the new one via bootable usb. Now windows says it can't activate. I've already downloaded 100gb of games and i REALLY don't want to do that again.
How can i get the new hdd to activate windows without wiping it? will the product key be the same for both versions? Can I update the old drive then swap it out with the new one and it be activated?
I currently have windows 7 on my 1TB hard drive and have recently bought a new 256gb Crucial SSD (but not installed it in my desktop yet).
I bought the SSD to be able to install games onto it so they load quicker but also if possible to have my OS booting from it so my computer loads quicker from switching on.
Someone put me onto the idea of using a program called Steam Mover to be able to move games from my HDD to the SSD without having to uninstall them and then re-download them direct to the SSD. I understand this can also be used for other programs like photoshop etc too.
I want to upgrade to Windows 10 but don't want to have to do a clean install and lose all the programs that i currently have installed such as Photoshop, Office, iTunes etc. Is it possible to somehow upgrade my OS on my HDD but then actually boot from the SSD perhaps by using the Steam Mover program?
If not, do I just have to bite the bullet and accept that I will either lose or have to reinstall a number of programs to my HDD? I do have a second 1TB HDD which is empty at the moment in case its needed for cloning files?
I recently upgraded my CPU, Motherboard, Ram, and HDD to SSD. I upgraded my genuine copy of windows 8.1 to windows 10 about 3 weeks prior. I didn't want to install windows 8 all over again only to then have to update to windows 10 right after. So I just cloned my HDD onto my SSD. It worked fine for a day, but now its telling me I need to activate windows.
What do I do, is there any way to activate without having to reinstall windows 8 then upgrade to windows 10? I know my windows 8 product key will not work.
how to reactivate my copy of Windows 10 if I make hardware upgrades that would make me need to format my hard drive (Motherboard, CPU, etc.). In other words say if I need a new motherboard down the road and once it is installed and I cannot boot into windows, how would I get my copy of windows 10 back after I format all the old drivers and such off and reinstall windows? Would I have to then buy a whole new copy? The only thing I could think of would install my version of windows 7, activate it, then upgrade back up to 10.
I need to re-activate Windows after a hardware change and was wondering if I could purchase an OEM license and use the key it gives me to activate it? I'm aware that using an OEM key means there will be troubles upgrading in the future, however I don't plan on changes for quite some time. Bottom line: Could I buy an OEM Windows 10 and go into the store, activate it and have it work?
If I understood this : clearly, then does it mean that Windows will activate itself from some Windows activation servers that are somehow written into my hardware even if I do a clean install deleting everything in my Windows partition?
Also, since the built-in "Create a Recovery Drive" will take forever or display an error when ''Backup system files to the recovery drive' is checked", I'm trying to create an Installation media. But I'm stuck with which ISO I should download. Now, there's Windows 10, Windows 10 Single Language, Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Home N. I'm running Windows 10 Home at the moment. Which was upgraded from Windows 8.1(I think there was ''Single Language'' written after "8.1", not sure though). Which Version should I download. And if I install the wrong version by chance, will Windows still activate after I find out and install the right version? Please clarify these.... I'm really looking forward to do a clean-install to get rid of all the errors and bugs with drivers and just start over.
*DETAILS: Windows 10 Home Build 10240 [Upgraded via free upgrade, had an OEM version of Windows 8.1 when first bought]
I have a watermark that says, "Activate Windows Go to Settings to activate Windows". I upgraded from windows 7 and then I replaced my cpu and mother board a month ago and now this message appears and I do not have a product key to activate it with.
i got a brand new computer recently that came with windows 10. i had to reinstall it a few times because of issues i thought were related to the installation (plus the first attempt asked me for a key which i didn't have, the second one didn't). i didn't activate right away. i got two BSOD in 24 hours and thought it was my computer but found out online that it's windows 10's fault so i went to update windows. the update i got took so long it almost looked like a whole new installation though it said updating. when i came home i went to activate and got this message windows is not activated as your previous version of windows on this device was not activated prior to upgrade to windows 10 error code 0x803f7001.
i am nearly 100% positive that error wasn't there before the update. how the hell can i have a previous installation when this is an windows 10 oem computer?
I had a pc failure, so i upgraded my motherboard and chip, as expected windows still booted from start with no issues, restarted to install lan driver, and when it fired up again i had the activate windows bottom right of screen, how do i fix this, I upgraded from win7.
Microsoft said that with 1511 build we can now enter a Windows 7/8/8.1 licence key to activate windows 10 until july... but not so much more information whatsoever.
I have a Windows 7 starter spare product key. I guess it's 32-bit (since I never heard of 64-bit version).
I would like to know if with that key I could activate a clean copy of windows 10 home 64-bit ?
I today swapped from my AMD 8370 to an Intel Xeon 1231v3 and now when I'm trying to activate windows I get error with code: 0x8007232B. Do I need to reinstall windows or buy a new key what to activate with?
In Windows 10, is there a way to download or activate the standard (old) windows photo viewer? The Windows 10 Photos app sucks for more reasons than I can say in one message. But the biggest problem is that it refuses to let me view my photos if I am not connected to the internet. I am in Ethiopia for a few weeks and internet is spotty. I take hundreds of pictures, transfer them to my Surface 3, then try to view them and it gives me an error and won't let me view any of them. Once I have an internet connection I can view them even though they are stored locally.
So i did a BIOS Update on my Msi Mobo. I Have an Activate Windows Watermark on the bottom right corner. But it only just came up randomly after the pc being online and on desktop for 4-5 hours. But if i would to restart my pc my windows would be activated when i first start upp but if i stay online and keep pc online on desktop the activate windows will pop upp again. My key works if I am starting windows with it activated.
Updated 2-3 hour later. So i restart pc the minute i posted this and got into windows and the activate windows wasn't there. But after playing The Division for like 2-3 hours the windows activate came across my screen. And i look up error and theres nothing on google.
I have a Lenovo X1 Carbon (2012 version) with a fingerprint reader. When I want to install the lenovo driver I have a message that said the Windows Biometric Framework need to be activate. I go into gpedit.msc and active the service, reboot the computer but still the error...
I want to prepare my desktop before selling it and wipe all personal data. I am aware of tools like DBAN which would wipe out the entire disk including Win 10. I would prefer not to do that.
On a related note - my desktop is HP - came with Windows 7 - has the disk partitioned to C: and Recovery Image D:. If I do wipe out the entire C: drive, how exactly will I be able to recover Win 7 from D: ? It won't boot, right?
OK, so, I finally got the install for Windows 10, and boom, it restarts into it's happy special circle with a percentage, explaining that it's this many percent done, I step away, and when I come back a couple minutes later..
The calendar continues to wipe clean the previous months dates. It will retain things like government holidays but anything I input is erased. This is frustrating because I often need to look back to see when something happened and if the calendar erases these dates it is worthless..
The app is connected to an outlook account. How to make Windows calendar stop doing this?
i was wiping down the keyboard and i deleted the icons i had on the desktop including recycle bin . How do i get it back. [URL] . i tryed Restore Missing Desktop Icons in Windows 7, 8, or 10
So I'm wanting to start with a clean slate on my C: Drive (SSD) by blowing it all away and reinstalling windows. However I would also like to leave my D: Drive (HDD) as it is. Is it possible to do so without backing up my D: to an external drive as I do not have one?
As of my attempts so far the only options I have been given are the ones in my picture attached .....
I did the upgrade with the media creation tool - "Upgrade this PC" option and my Windows wasn't activated. Using the "Activate" button gets me a "Windows can't be activated. Try again later" message (I'm on Brazilian Portuguese language, so the actual English message may be a little different).
After some web searching, I tried a variety of slmgr commands that all return error messages saying I'm on a "non-core edition" and none of the slui options give any result (not even errors, they just don't do anything). Clicking on the error detail link on the activation page shows a blank popup.
Product key information shows *****- opposed to *****-XXXXX I've seem in many screenshots of other people having activation problems.
My previous OS was Windows 7 SP1 OEM that came shipped with the laptop and was never formatted (and the hardware was never changed). I kept my personal data while making the upgrade.
Another issue I'm having which I don't know if it is related or not to the activation problems, is that Window Update have tried and failed many many times to install package KB3074683.
For the record, the activation screen was different and I haven't received any message about the system not being activated before creating a Microsoft account in the XBox app (and I still log on the computer with my local account).
How to activate my Windows 10? I'd like to make a clean install but I'm afraid of doing so before my I get my license and not be able to roll back to Win7 if I can't activate it.
I originally got win10 through the free upgrade from 8.1 and did the install that only replaces system files etc. Some things weren't working correctly such as the sleep function and I kept being unable to login due to the start menu and Cortana not starting, so I decided to do a reset of the OS.
I managed to reset and get a fresh install of win10 but now I can't get activation to work. I've run all the windows updates and tried the slmgr.vbs /ato command but it says my product key is blocked.
I've recently been trying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I have tried to use the installer provided by Microsoft but the installer hangs on Checking For Updates. This doesn't end and I cannot pass it. I cannot use windows update to get the update as it just keeps searching for hours on end. I have tried to install the OS from USB and click 'Upgrade the System' but the OS will not activate; I guess it does not count as upgrading my OS so the key is not registered.
I have tried following this (Windows 10 - Upgrade Installation) and I have downloaded the ISO stated in Step 6 using option 1 (Windows 10 ISO Download) but then when I get to Step 7 #8, the ISO does not have Setup.exe?
I have been an Insider since the very first Insider build was released. I had installed each and every build first being on the Slow ring and the on the Fast. I had upgraded from a genuine Windows 8.1 Pro.
When the final RTM build TH1 Professional 10240 was released to Insiders ahead of schedule, I readily installed it and my machine was permanently activated at that time. The product key used was a generic one ending in 3V66T. Many of you may be knowing this.
Today, in fact just now, I formatted my system partition and installed a clean copy of Windows 10 Pro from USB which I had created using the Microsoft Creation Tool. When the setup asked me for a product key, I entered the same generic key as stated above. But now when I go to the Settings, it says the key doesn't work and hence, my machine cannot be activated. I signed-in using my Microsoft account before using the PC.
What the heck! I am an Insider. And didn't expect this to happen. What should I do next? Would the machine get activated itself after some time?
