laptop has Win 10 that was an free upgrade from Windows 7. If I clone to SSD will activation remain? I know if hardware changes will be an issue. I will backup key just in case, not sure it is needed. later hopefully a fresh install.
I have used Easeus and Acronis in the past with Windows 7, always with bootable media to do the clone. first time cloning windows 10, was thinking about Macrium, just never tried it. Put the new SSD in place and boot to the HDD as external?
Background: We have purchased 14 HP EliteBook 820 laptops (which come with Windows 8.1 downgraded to Win 7 preinstalled) to rollout within our company and my usual method for laptop rollouts is to setup one with our corporate apps etc, run SysPrep and then clone the hard drive to the rest of the laptops.
This has worked fine in the past with Windows XP and 7 but with the introduction of the free upgrade to Windows 10 which we want to take advantage of it has produced a problem.
Problem: I have setup one laptop and gone through the free upgrade to Windows 10 then installed our required apps etc, run SysPrep, shutdown and cloned the hard drive to another hard drive to go into the next laptop (same model) to rollout.
Windows is then unable to activate giving error code 0xC004C003 meaning the key is blocked.
Because the laptops have OEM Windows licences pre-installed this means that I don't have a product key sticker; it is embedded in the BIOS.
I am assuming that at the point of upgrade the Microsoft servers check the key and add it to their list of 'OK' keys to allow the upgrade.
When the cloned hard drive is placed into another laptop the key embedded into the BIOS is not OK and Windows does not activate? I've tried the slui program to remove the licence but that just removes the key and asks for a new one. I have also tried doing the clone of a clean install after upgrading. I have tried speaking to HP and Microsoft but each one said speak to the other.
Currently my only option is to setup one laptop with the OEM Win 7 or 8.1, install our Apps, do the SysPrep and cloning and then upgrade each one individually at the end of the OOBE experience. This will be more time consuming when rolling out and rebuilding.
Is there a way to find out which key was used for activation?
I have done testing with insider programs. I also tested this with my windows 7 oem install, I rolled the oem back to windows 7. I also used a windows 7 retail version to also upgrade to windows 10. This way I can keep my multiple boot setup. I just want to be legit that is all.
I have never had problems activating genuine copies of Windows. Changing cpu's, hdd's ram and graphics cards have never bothered Microsoft. Back in the XP days, I also changed motherboards with OEM software successfully. As far as I can tell, only changing the motherboard would cause problems with modern operating systems. I have changed hdd's for ssd's and vice versa and graphics cards with no problems on W10 upgrades. Today, I received a cpu from Ebay and fitted it into the pc which runs 8.1 and W10 upgrade from W7hp. BIOS recognised it at once, but both copies of Windows required a restart, system and device manager failed to recognise the cpu first time. Activation was not affected in either copy of Windows.
I used to have a program that checks activation/expiration of windows and/or Microsoft office with just one click. I think the name was "check activation" ...
A friend's Asus 8.1 laptop was stuck in an automatic repair loop so I suggested that he upgrade to Windows 10.
Because he was unable to access his system, I opted for a clean install and I created a bootable Win 10 usb on another pc. I used this usb to insall Win 10 on his machine, skipping any requests to activate.
I was under the impression that Win 10 would automatically activate on installation. I'm not sure he ever signed up for the free upgrade offer before Win 8 on his machine decided to implode.
I don't know if the right place, but I'll share my problem. Last days I resized my C: drive in order to put Linux on my free space and dual boot. Since then my windows lost his activation, gave me eroor code 0xC004F012 and don't want to shut down - just log off.
I'm having a problem with the phone activation. I'm stuck at the security check dialogue, keeps saying "we cant verify you". Is it just me, or did MS kill phone activation?
I'm having this issue on a Store purchased Toshiba Satellite Pro which had Windows 7 Home Prem. I followed all the upgrade instructions and it all looks good except it's not activated. Product key blocked. Error code: 0xC004C003
I had upgraded from W8.1 and Windows 10 was activated. I was under the impression that I didn't need a product key and that my PC would be recognized after doing a clean install. Now I have W10 installed fresh, but get the error code: Error code: 0xC004C003
I would like to know if i could clone my ssd (m.2) with windows 10, all my files to my storage HDD.i just feel like having it on both my drives just in case something happens to either one.i have it backed up on a usb drive as well,but i just would like it on both.do i have to purchase a program like acronis? is there another way to do it? do you think i should really be worried about this? is it a good idea to have the same operating system on two drives in the same computer?
I am using Windows 10. And I just received November Update yesterday.
My new Samsung 250 GB SSD is on the way , and I don't want to install a fresh install. With my 1Mbps (128KBps) internet it will take more than a day to complete.
My HDD is 500 GB , but C drive is only 50 GB.
I want to close only the C drive into SSD and make it a 200GB+ partition (or less but more than 50 GB). I will be using HDD for media storage and SDD for OS and Apps.
I have an existing Windows 10 computer with corrupt W10 image that Microsoft says I need to totally reinstall. I also have a new SSD waiting to be installed. Due to corruption I do not want to clone. W10 USB has been created with Media creation tool. The questions - Do I need to format the SSD before W10 install? If so, how? Do I need to partition the SSD? If so how and with how many partitions of what size? I assume then I can unplug the HDD, plug in the SSD, boot from the USB, and it would install W10 onto the SSD.
I'm trying disgnosis for my Dad, who's trying to move over to SSD.
The story so far: Using AOMEI backupper bootable disk, we tried to clone his current HDD onto the SSD. Part-way through the clone process, it gives an error saying that the drive is too fragmented to clone, and stops.
We run defrag on the C: Drive, resulting in a 1% fragmented drive at the end, and try again.
The same message crops up - too fragmented. It turns out the 'recovery' partition (It's an OEM machine, so its ~10Gb rather than the normal 100Mb) is too fragmented to clone, and we can't defrag it.
So we just clone the C: drive, leaving 1Gb of unallocated space, and then use the recovery DVD's to run startup repair, hoping it will restore the MBR or 'normal' recovery partition, and make the system load. All we get is a blue screen with a blinking cursor in the top left that persists or over 5 minutes.
Startup Repair completes successfully. According to the Log file it ran 2 iterations of the repair operations, and found no errors! However the drive still will not boot.
This is particuarly annoying as I have used backupper both personally and professionally and have NEVER seen the fragmentation issue before, or had any issue at all for that matter with a cloned drive.
My previous laptop running windows 10 finally gave up the ghost and died on me. Not a hard drive issue but power problems (in trying to fix it I broke some of the solder joints), any way it was 5 years old and was due to be replaced, however the hard drive was absolutely fine. So I bought a new laptop with a shiny new 1tb hard drive with windows 10 pre-installed.
So having used Macrium before (when I installed a 256gb SSD) I decided to leave the new laptop as a clean install and reinstall any programs that I still needed. Guess what, it seems that there was an awful lot of stuff that I had accumulated that I just didn't need any more. After copying some documents over for work and installing a couple of essentials total space used including OS is less than 75gb.
I cloned my hard drive a Seagate 2T to a WD 2T using acronics software.I removed my Seagate drive and plugged in my WD drive in the same spot and system would not boot tried using windows 10 repair disk no luck plugged the Seagate drive back in booted???
Does Macrium or other common/good backup/clone package can take an existing good bootable SD Card and clone it to a fresh one? do they need to be exact matches [brand/speed/size] or near-proxy?
I've installed a new 500 GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO in my system. I want to clone only the "used" portion of my 2TB HDD (about 370 GB) to the SSD for faster performance when I boot, run programs, etc.
I'm a bit of a noob, and when I go into "Disk Management" one option is to shrink the largest volume on my HDD. I'm thinking that if I shrink it down to about 370 GB from the current 1.8 TB maybe then I can go ahead and clone using, say, Macrium Reflect. Once the cloning is done, I want to boot from the SSD, back it up, and then wipe the HDD and use it as a mass storage disk.
FYI, the HDD is encrypted by Bitlocker.
Is it as simple as that? What issues do I need to watch out for?
Received a MSI laptop with pre-installed W8.1. Planning to install a new SSD on m.2 slot. I have several options to update to W10.
p.s: I am keeping both SSD and HDD in my laptop
1) Clone from old HDD to new SSD using MSI burn recovery. Then update to W10 2) Upgrade to W10 on my old HDD. Get W10 activated. Perform a clean install on SSD. Lastly, format my old HDD as secondary drive
I've got a new computer and I want to clone my old OS(windows 10) from my old hardrive to my new hardrive. I've read that it doesn't always work! Is this true? And is there any other ways round it?
How do you clone a Hard drive with EaseUS? Or any other software! Do you just scan hard drive for files Etc. and export the results on to your external hard drive.
I had Windows 10 configured to auto log on with only a single user account and haven't had a single issue until last night after a restart to apply updates. Now when I boot my PC I am stopped at the login screen stating my password is invalid. The reason it's invalid is I now have two accounts with my name assigned however the one it tries to log into by default is the newly created one (it looks like it simply duplicated my original) and it doesn't allow any access to Windows. I select my original and log in manually just fine.
The problem is there is only one User listed in the User Accounts settings and that account only appears on initial boot as I can log out to the login screen post boot and the account has disappeared.
If I clone a disc with Acronis true home image . Does it just copy programmas and apps I have installed? This would save me a lot of time if this is true. For example if I have Windows 10 Home installed when I backed it up and installed pro, would it keep my windows 10 professional licence and Office Etc. On to my new install.
