no reactivation after moving hdd to diffrent laptop

I got lucky to find a broken hp laptop in the trash with the hard drive still inside. I took it home to see what I could salvage from it. I pull out the hdd and put it in my Toshiba laptop and try to boot from it expecting to have to activate windows again to be able to use it. To my surprise it boots in to windows 7 and I am able to get to the logon screen. It shows 3 accounts one of which does not have a password on it. I logon to the account and go to start – computer – system properties. And It recognize that the processor and the amount of ram has changed. I then update the windows experience index without a problem and I am able to use this copy of windows 7

The hp laptop had a...
Core 2 duo with 4 GB or ram

My Toshiba laptop had a...
Amd athlon 64x2 with only 3 GB or ram

(I don’t think there is any similarity here)


Other things:

• I am pretty sure it was an OEM copy of windows

• Windows is activated on that laptop now

• When I found the laptop the screen hinge was damaged (probably why they trashed it)

• I did download a product key finder program (magic jelly bean key finder) because the laptop didn’t have a windows product key sticker (so I have the product key now)

• Windows does recognize that the processor and amount of ram has change and it shows that in system properties.

• It still gets all of the windows updates that get sent out

What I want to know is why didn’t windows require reactivation after moving the hdd to a completely new computer? is there a way to prevent reactivation somehow?

there is no sticker on or inside the battery slot

on the toshiba laptop (which i also found in the trash in near perfact condition a while back ) i cant do the other thing beacuse after one to many laptop overheats the onboard graphics chip on the mobo has died and the computer is dead gone
i still have the hdd but a dead computer

Always keep your laptops cleaned out to avoid overheating. Monitor the temps if in doubt.

It's here as well as other important Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

gregrocker said:

Always keep your laptops cleaned out to avoid overheating. Monitor the temps if in doubt.

It's here as well as other important Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

yes but it is already dead. i dont see any way to fix it but buy a new mobo

That's for when you find another one