Genuine Advantage problem after swapping hard drives

gterr

Hi there,

Yesterday my laptop was fried after a huge power surge. As it happens I have an almost identical spare laptop, so I'm trying to get the data off the old laptop by swapping hard drives: simply putting the drive from my fried laptop into the new one.

All's fine, except that the system has identified the swap and is now saying that the copy of Windows XP Pro has not been activated. I have three days before activation becomes compulsory.

Both copies of Windows HAVE been activated on their respective laptops, but they were OEM installations so I'm assuming something is recorded in BIOS and now the mismatch has been detected.

I could just retreat after getting off the data, and put the original hard drive back in the spare laptop, but actually it would be great if I could leave this transplanted drive in place: it will save me all the hassle of getting everything back as I want it. But what do I do about this Genuine Advantage message? If I try to activate it, I fear Microsoft will claim I'm using pirated software. I'm guessing that even if I phone Microsoft they will not help because it's OEM software.

Any ideas?

JJ_Egan

Follow the activation path using the phone method if entering the OEM serial fails to auto activate just hang on you go throught to MS person just tell them you replaced hard drive and they may activate again even if its OEM . Worth a try as i have reactivated numerous windows that way but admittedly not OEM licence .

jje

gterr

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Follow the activation path using the phone method if entering the OEM serial fails to auto activate just hang on you go throught to MS person just tell them you replaced hard drive and they may activate again even if its OEM . Worth a try as i have reactivated numerous windows that way but admittedly not OEM licence .

jje

Thanks for this. Just to clarify: am I trying to activate (re-activate) the OEM licence on the replacement drive, or the OEM license on the laptop into which I have transplanted the drive?

bod1467

HDD you want in laptop you want. Activate that. Either OEM license, it doesn't really matter (as long as they are the same version of Windows). In other words, reactivate the license for the version of windows you want.

Don't worry - I've done this before, even with an OEM license, and it was fine.

wealdroam

OP, in your other thread you said...

gterr wrote: »

I realise I may be able to rescue the data by removing the hard drives and mounting in a caddy linked to another computer...

Why are you not using a caddy to salvage the data?
Avoids all this activation stuff.

gterr

wealdroam wrote: »

OP, in your other thread you said...

Why are you not using a caddy to salvage the data?
Avoids all this activation stuff.

I haven't got one.

I could get one from eBay but I'd like access to the data quickly.

Also, if I can do a hard drive transplant it's as good as reloading a drive image: saves hours of getting stuff back the way I want it.

esuhl

gterr wrote: »

I'm assuming something is recorded in BIOS and now the mismatch has been detected.

It's the a hardware ID hash that gets submitted to Microsoft that has changed due to the change in hardware.

A minor change such as this would probably result in automatic re-activation. If not you just need to call Microsoft (the activation process should tell you what number to call) and they'll re-activate it for you.

I once replaced a motherboard (with a completely different brand/model) on a PC with an OEM copy of XP installed and Microsoft very kindly re-activated it for me without any hassle.

gterr wrote: »

If I try to activate it, I fear Microsoft will claim I'm using pirated software. I'm guessing that even if I phone Microsoft they will not help because it's OEM software.

If Microsoft didn't think that you were running a pirated (or otherwise unauthorised) version of Windows before, why would they be suspicious because of a changed hard drive? Just give 'em a call - I'm sure they'll reactivate it for you. If not, sue for breach of contract. Or switch to Linux... :rotfl:

If you're going to be swapping components around, it's obviously a good idea to do that during the "grace period" so you don't need to re-activate the OS multiple times.

gterr

Thanks everyone. All done!

Call to Microsoft was required, but no problems with the reactivation.

cit_k

Weird, I have never had a problem swapping drives on dell d620/d630's i do it a lot as I have both.

Were you connected to the internet, i have had it pop up a message about it before, but it just resolves itself when you run the check.

Hammyman

cit_k wrote: »

Weird, I have never had a problem swapping drives on dell d620/d630's i do it a lot as I have both.

Were you connected to the internet, i have had it pop up a message about it before, but it just resolves itself when you run the check.

If you are running a pre-activated install of XP, such as the one that originally came with the machine or done via restore discs, you won't get the problem.