Used recovery media, Windows claims it's not genuine

zagmund

Hi all,

I decided it was time to rebuild my old Toshiba laptop so I stuck in a new hard drive, booted up from the recovery DVDs and re-installed Windows 7.

All appeared to be well except that Windows claims it's not genuine . . . . or in other words it hasn't been activated or otherwise registered. I clicked on the link and it claims that the code (auto-supplied, not typed by me) isn't valid.

Now, I know that the license is valid because it has been running for the last 6 or 7 years, but I guess that the recovery image doesn't have a license key burned into it. I had a look at the bottom of the laptop and the key is pretty much unreadable due to wear & tear over the years. I *might* be able to read most of it but there are definitely patches were it's just worn off.

I still have the old hard drive and can plug that back in no problem - is it possible to get the key off that? Alternatively, if we assume that the key printed on the laptop is unreadable, am I out of luck? I registered the laptop with Toshiba back in the day, but I haven't found any way to get the key back from there. They will sell me recovery media (which I already have) for €50, but presumably this will have the same problem of having no key on it. There seems little value in having recovery media if you can't recover your machine with it.

So - any suggestions on how to get the machine back up and running? I already have Linux running on a bunch of laptops at home, but I need a Windows machine on occasion.

The machine is a Toshiba Satellite Pro L670-18E, the license sticker says Windows 7 Home Prem OA.

z

brightspark

Your activation was probably linked to your old hard drive.

Have you tried ringing microsoft? I've heard they can activate even without a full number.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/950929

Khannie

Ah I'd say just send them a photo and they'll be grand about it. I knew a guy who used to work in that department and they're reasonable people.

johnnybmac

You could put your old HDD back in, boot from it (if it still works obviously) and run a Key Finder program

yoyo

johnnybmac wrote: »

You could put your old HDD back in, boot from it (if it still works obviously) and run a Key Finder program

Not going to work for OEM embedded licenses. Only at the weekend was tasked with the job of reinstalling Vista :eek: . Couldn't read most of the OEM sticker as its worn off so ran a keyfinding program. Keys didn't match..
Just used the Dell restore tool to reload Vista

Nick