Windows 7 - This copy of Windows is not Genuine after cloning drive. Fix!

Long story... I had a Raid failure last night. After fixing the issue and restoring my Windows 7 Pro from a Ghost 15 Backup my machine boots up and displays a light blue screen with only a small water mark in thre bottom right corner which states "Windows 7, Build 7600, This copy of Windows is not Genuine." There was no start menu or any Icons. I was able to start the Task Manager via Ctrl+Alt+Del, and then Start explorer.exe and cmd. via New Task. I could not however use any installed programs. After 3 hrs on the phone with MS I was told I would have to do a clean install. When I had the commad prompt open I noticed that it said F:/.... My windows should be on C:/??? What had happened is that for some reason Ghost sets the drive letter to something other than C: A bit of Google and I discovered the solution. The Drive letter must match what it was previously or Windows thinks you are trying to install on more than one PC.

This is how you fix it:

1. Boot into Safe Mode
2. Ctrl+Alt+Del
3. Start Task Manager
4. New task> cmd
5. Type in "regedit"

Then follow steps 9-16 of this article from Microsoft

How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows
How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows

1. Locate the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
2. Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "\DosDevices\C:".
3. Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename.
   
   Note You must use Regedit instead of Regedt32 to rename this registry key.
4. Rename it to an unused drive letter "\DosDevices\Z:".
   
   This frees up drive letter C.
5. Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "\DosDevices\D:".
6. Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.
7. Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "\DosDevices\C:".
8. Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to "\DosDevices\D:".
9. Restart computer.

After I restrted I had everything back and functional as it was with my most recent backup.

This is a last dich effort. According to the tech I was on the phone forever with it does not always work and could make things worse. So I would only use it if you are about to do a clean install and loose everything anyway. Hope this helps someone.

Thanks for posting this solution, bxmedic! I'll flag the thread to be marked 'Solved'.

Cheers,

Walker
Windows Outreach Team

I had a similar problem that had been vexing me for hours. I was very afraid I would have to do a clean install, but alas!, your fix worked.

Thanks again,
Genna

its hard to believe that after this much-praised flip to Windows 7, we still have to deal with "DOS DEVICES" !!!

Hey thanks guys. And remember without troubleshooting Microsoft OS's, we would be bored.

It's quite common. Often when restoring/copying an o/s to a different Partition from the original.

Windows can get to the login screen , then the registry paths are wrong of course - you may be stuck at preparing desktop forever, or get the Not Genuine message.

You can fix it as above, or do it the easy way with Paragon Boot Corrector:







There is a version of Boot corrector ( not quite as pretty) on FREE Paragon Rescue Kit Express

Excellent Post I a actually learned something today

Very good post. It's good to know this.

Hey guys, I need help. I followed the steps till "restart your computer" and now when I start my computer , the login freezes at "windows is starting". Now I can't access my PC. Can someone help me ?

FWIW, this is really a fix for an image restoring mistake, not really a generic fix for every instance of the "This copy of Windows is not genuine" message.