If anyone wonder why I haven't replied for a couple of days, it's because I'm still waiting for definite information about the status of the computer...
I found your post in 2024 and I couldn't help but register an account on here and reply. All of this knowledge in one thread and the very first link...
As I already wrote, you don't need to install Win 7 on the new drive just to create the EFI and the MSR partition.
You can create both with diskpart...
My preferred strategy is to activate early in the rebuild process. No sense wasting your time with the rest if the activation process turns out to be...