Cloned HDD - getting 'This is not a genuine copy' message - HELP

samuria said:

I wouldnt have one massive partition if it has problems you loose the lot if you split it you have better chance

+1! I too recommend having a separate data paritition, much less possibility of of data loss if OS craters and a restore or rebuild or reinstall is called for.

Oghma Infinium said:

Hi ,

you may find a good tutorial here : Convert MBR to GPT
it applies to Win10 , but the process is the same for Win7

If you're looking for infos regarding how are booting WindowsNT6.0 (& above) on GPT drive in UEFI mode and MBR drive in legacy BIOS mode ; have a look here : Windows NT 6 boot process (warning , it's deeply technical)

You may also be aware of having a 'System Reserved' and its workarounds : What 'boot' & system volumes are ? (essential knowledge)
and how to get rid of the 'System Reserved' partion,safely (not like there : sevenforum tutorial )

there are also others tools to boot on GPT drive in Legacy BIOS mode , but these are highly experimental and may refer to what's called 'hybrid partitioning'

If you are looking for the genuine OEM tool to activate your PC : Windows 7 OEM – Applying OEM System Locked Preinstallation Activation , this works offline. You may check your ACPI tables for SLIC 2.1 with this tool FirmwareTablesView v1.01 , to be sure that you can use the OEM tool . you still have to know which Win7 was installed (HOME, PRO, ULTIMATE ..)

That's fantastic info - many thanks.

I have run a tool (can't remember the name - somthing like APT - from raymond.cc) that has recovered the OEM licence and can be used to re-activate windows on the same machine but on a different hard disk (my scenario).

Zaph