Re: Windows 8 Pre Activated Iso Google Drive
Lora Ceasor
I recently got a new NVMe drive to replace my existing SATA SSD. I did a clean install of Windows 11 and now am unable to activate. The previous install was an upgrade through the insider program. Tried going through the troubleshooting app with no success. Choosing "I recently changed hardware" also fails with a message that it is unable to activate as the digital license has already been activated. The only thing that changed was the hard drive and this is my first attempt to reactivate Windows 11 since the upgrade. I doubt there is anything that can be done as I just spent the morning trying to get this resolved through MS Support before finally being directed here, but if anyone knows of a solution I would love to hear it. If not I'll just switch back to my SATA drive.
Yeah that's what I ended up doing. Unfortunately when I boot to that drive the new drive no longer shows up in Windows. If I format it through setup (which is the only place I can currently see the NVMe) it blows up the SATA SSD so that it will no longer boot. Strangely if I reinstall Windows to the NVMe I can boot the SATA again but the NVMe is again missing in action. This is so bizarre. What a way to spend 6hrs. @Little_Joe
My laptop hard drive has died and I am replacing it with a new SSD. I am downloading a tool from Microsoft's website to install Windows 10 on the new drive, but how do I activate it? Windows 10 came with the laptop so I don't have a key stored anywhere except on the completely toast hard drive. And I don't think I had the foresight to link the system to a Microsoft account. Any other way to get the system activated using the original key? The laptop is out of warranty btw.
If the license key came with your laptop, it means it is a OEM key, which is bound to motherboard. Windows 10 should be activated by default on new SSD. However, OEM key is not transferable and can be only used on one device.
Left my Seagate external drive plugged into the docking station at work. Next day Bitlocker was activated. Been through the ringer with IT who shows our Bitlocker for External Drives was disabled. No recovery key available as supposedly it wasn't done by anyone. Can't lose the data. Ideas, thoughts, experiences?
@A1 thanks for asking, and no, it has not. Again, it is the external Seagate drive that is locked. Company maintains it was not done by them, yet Bitlocker isn't even available on my home laptop, and the drive was connected to the work docking station when it happened.
I spoke to a programmer friend who said maybe I should talk to the company Global Admin for Microsoft, perhaps the daily Tech Support contact has more pressing matters to handle than my problem. Will try that but don't hold out much hope.
In that case, at work, someone connected to the docking station and as an administrator encrypted the drive - I still think that this can be a dangerous situation - it can happen again!
Surely this is not the expected behavior - never will a drive automatically encrypt itself without changing the settings , so who did it?
I have the exact same issue and from what I've gathered online, we're not the only ones and this appears to be caused by BitLocker itself. It activated automatically on drivers without user consent and without a recovery key or a password to get the affected driver back. Until the issue is fixed, chances are none of us are getting our files back. This also happened on Western Digital disks and local harddrives on some people's computers and most of them were brand new.
After letting my PC get old for 7 years, I'm thinking about upgrading and moving to an SSD drive. I'm concerned about re-installing Windows 10 though. Back in the day it used to be simple: You went to your PC settings, checked the activation code, reinstalled Windows and were all set. This time it's different for me.
I moved from a Windows 8 (activated with an oldschool activation code) to Windows 10 when it was a free upgrade. However, now I can't see the activation code under settings, as it says "Windows is activated with a digital licence linked to you Microsoft account".
So, how does a new install work in this case? I buy a new SSD, burn myself a Win10 installer disc and then what? Will my original Win8 activation code work? Or will I have to log in and Windows will fetch the license info from online? Or will it mess around with my for installing Win10 twice (although I think the licence is tied to the motherboard, not sure)? I'm pretty sure I can figure it out once I get there, just want to be a bit more informed before I start installing stuff.
The Windows 10 activation process was designed to be simpler, not more complicated. Product keys are terrible, and people lose them or they get ruined. From a licensing standpoint it enables people to violate their license agreement, by moving OEM keys to a different computer. So Microsoft made it better for them and the consumer.
Hello, I recently purchased a PowerSpec G436 and noticed the MSI Z490 Plus mainboard has another available m.2 slot. I was going to purchase a WD 1TB Black SSD when I noticed it's faster than the pre-installed WD 1TB Blue in the PowerSpec. Because of this, I'd like to move the operating system over to it.
Can I simply install the WD Black drive in the second m.2 slot, clone the entire WD Blue drive in the first m.2 slot to it, then swap their slots and wipe the WD Blue to be used as storage? If so, should I expect any issues with the Windows 10 Pro version that came pre-activated after cloning the OS drive?
Thanks for the quick response @Landennnn! Yes, I'll be using EaseUS Todo Backup to clone the entire drive, ensuring boot and recovery partitions are retained. Good to know about the activation, thanks very much!
Afterwards I swapped the drive's slots and booted it up but it the computer was still booting to the OS on the old SSD now in slot M2_2. (After the clone I placed a text file in the root directory of the OS partitions on each to help identify "Old-Drive.txt" vs "New-Drive.txt" just in case)
I pulled the old SSD in slot M2_2 and booted the computer with only the new SSD in slot M2_1. After successfully logging into the OS, I shut it down again to re-insert the old SSD into slot M2_2 again.
Afterwards the computer booted correctly to the OS on the new SSD in slot M2_1 and I was then able to use "diskpart" from the cmd to "clean" the old drive in M2_2 to reformat it to be used as a storage drive.
I am trying to enable my self encrypting hard drive (SED) (Samsung MZNLN256HMHQ-000H7) on my new computer, after reading this white paper I understand that HP Client Security Manager should be able to do that (the paper says HP ProtectTools, but I understand that has been rebranded as HP Client Security Manager on my machine).
I have learned that HP Client Security is not supported on Windows 10 and will not lock my Samsung SED. HP technical support suggested I use Window's bitlocker to encrypt my drive. Bitlocker is a software based encryption service. I refuse to do this because of the performance degradation (the whole reason I bought a hardware based SED).
To set an authentication key and lock my drive I have been forced to purchased Winmagic's SecurDoc, which is the only non-enterprise software I could find that will lock my drive. It cost me over $100.
I am quite disappointed with HP for selling me a SED without the ability to lock it myself without additional software. I'll give them some credit that this was a custom set-up, and some blame should go to Microsoft for not allowing HP client security free reign.
To lock a SED one needs to set an authentication key. I have read that many manufacturers will not enable this ability in the BIOS for fear that the customer will lock it and forget the password making the maching unless.
It would be nice if HP could just instruct you on how to activate the Self encrypting drive. I just want to be able to make a choice to "encrypt the HD" via its own chip/hardware, etc. There are white papers around that have some information but it doesn't appear crystal clear to me.
there is no information on how to actually activate HD (hardware encryption). I called HP and the best they could do was tell me that there weer no instructions on how to activate it for Windows 10. windows 7 and maybe earlier versuions of windows 10 shipped with HP protect tools. That software is not avaialble on my computer. The agent after speaking with his team manager several times advised that I should purchase and use WinMagic to mange the drive.
Bitlocker is installed so you can use that software encryption (Microsoft). There is also a power on lock and a drive lock option. I beleive that you must protect the bios with a n administrator password before you can use Drivelock.
I've been digging into this more, and still can't find any difinitive answers but I have an unceratin answer that I am sticking with for the time being until the time that this thread gets any attention.
I found a white paper at samsung (where my drive is from) that seems to suggest that the encryption is always on but useless until a password is set. It isn't talking about my exact drive but I hope the process is standard across their drives. I am really hoping that when I set a password at power-on from the HP Client Security Manager, that my drive is encrypted and protected.
If i access disk management , the c drive shows encrypted by bitlocker. the power on lock only computer doesn't show anything on the c drive about encryption and drivelock doesn't either (but i didn't expect it to show anything anyway in reference to drivelock)
I'm assuming that power on lock wouldn't show c drive encrypted anyway for the HD encryption because technically if i have logged in at the "power on" lock screen the drive is decrypted at the moment. Assuming that "power on" lock is the key to encrypt and decrypt the drive.
I too am interested to know if you have information about the power on lock/password Dennis. If you know that it is the key to encrypt and decrypt the HD (SED) or if we do indeed need software like WIn Magic to activate the encryption.
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