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

[fergiet]

I did get an email from MS. Completed the form and they are asking me to send the product to them in Ireland and they will check it. If it is not genuine they say they will send a replacement at no cost to me.

Still waiting to hear back from Amazon and their reseller.

Off on a trip for a week so it will have to wait 'till I get back.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[NoelDP]

That's good to know - I was under the impression that the Compimentary Replacement Program had been terminated.

 

[seavixen32]

I did get an email from MS. Completed the form and they are asking me to send the product to them in Ireland and they will check it. If it is not genuine they say they will send a replacement at no cost to me.

Still waiting to hear back from Amazon and their reseller.

Off on a trip for a week so it will have to wait 'till I get back.

Thanks for all the help.

You're very welcome. I do hope you get a positive response from Microsoft and that they chase the vendor up.

The only way these crooks will be stopped is by hitting them where it hurts - in the pocket.

 

[fergiet]

Thanks for all the help guys.

Just got an email from MS -

"Your counterfeit report submission has been reviewed and accepted. A complimentary software replacement kit will be shipped to the address you provided when submitting your counterfeit report.


Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA, USA 98052"

So a great result for me and my son's laptop. MS often gets a bad press but I am very impressed with the way they have dealt with my issue.

 

[seavixen32]

Well, that is a result.

It's win, win, all round.

You get a genuine operating system, Microsoft get some good publicity, and with a bit of luck, one of the bad guys gets punished where it hurts.

I do think though that online retailers such as Amazon should vet their sellers more carefully. After all, the bad publicity doesn't do them any good whatsoever.

 

[NoelDP]

A good result indeed - I suspect that there's a few more hoopse that fergiet may have to jump through, but with any luck he'll end up with a valida Windows install.

Having said that, the replacement OS will be restricted to use on the affected machine (in the same way that an OEM license is) by the secondary SLT that comes with the package.

 

[fergiet]

The delivery man brought a package from MS this morning. It contained disks for 32 & 64 bit versions of Windows 7 Ultimate. Considering the "fake" that I sent them was the Home Premium version it seems generous.

Just wish I could install in on my own pc instead of my son's laptop ! But that would be greedy.

Thanks Microsoft for dealing with this so well.

 

[seavixen32]

Now, now, you're getting greedy.

If your son is still at school, have a look here for genuine and legitimate student software at huge discounts. Then you can install your new OS on your system.

Student discounts, deals & offers for premium software in UK

 

[NoelDP]

Just wish I could install in on my own pc instead of my son's laptop ! But that would be greedy.

Thanks Microsoft for dealing with this so well.

Heh! I know the feeling.
Please check the paperwork - Does it have the secondary SLT slip I mentioned, about being restricted to use on the affected PC?
I ask, because different MS Office seem to have different practices in this respect - or the rules change.

 

[jimbo45]

Well, that is a result.

It's win, win, all round.

You get a genuine operating system, Microsoft get some good publicity, and with a bit of luck, one of the bad guys gets punished where it hurts.

I do think though that online retailers such as Amazon should vet their sellers more carefully. After all, the bad publicity doesn't do them any good whatsoever.

Hi there


Great result -- but just consider for a while -- just considering the sheer volume of goods Amazon ships with minimal amounts of problems I don't think you can blame Amazon -- two things would ensure --

1) Cost of Goods would rise horribly
2) delivery time would be increased -- and I know that when I order stuff online I usually want it delivered by YESTERDAY.

Amazon like most large organisations can't possibly individually check every single source of supply that does business with them -- at least not directly.

You could argue that they should -- but again would you be prepared to pay a lot more for your goods.

A Rogue trader can always slip in under te net and on the whole I think Amazon does a useful job and the amount of complaints it gets is very small in relation to the number of customers serviced and the volume of goods supplied.

As always in these things weed out the bad boys like you've done AND ALSO REPORT THE TRADER / SUPPLIER TO YOUR LOCAL TRADING STANDARDS OFFICER. (Most countries if not all in the developed countries have these type of people on their payrolls. Complaints do work too since the trading licence of these companies are withdrawn and the directors / business owners fined significantly too).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[NoelDP]

Great result -- but just consider for a while -- just considering the sheer volume of goods Amazon ships with minimal amounts of problems I don't think you can blame Amazon -- two things would ensure --

1) Cost of Goods would rise horribly
2) delivery time would be increased -- and I know that when I order stuff online I usually want it delivered by YESTERDAY.

Amazon like most large organisations can't possibly individually check every single source of supply that does business with them -- at least not directly.

You could argue that they should -- but again would you be prepared to pay a lot more for your goods.

A Rogue trader can always slip in under te net and on the whole I think Amazon does a useful job and the amount of complaints it gets is very small in relation to the number of customers serviced and the volume of goods supplied.

As always in these things weed out the bad boys like you've done AND ALSO REPORT THE TRADER / SUPPLIER TO YOUR LOCAL TRADING STANDARDS OFFICER. (Most countries if not all in the developed countries have these type of people on their payrolls. Complaints do work too since the trading licence of these companies are withdrawn and the directors / business owners fined significantly too).

Cheers
jimbo

PLease note that the had nothing to do with Amazon, as such - they merely provided the portal (in the same way a eBay does) for the fraudster selling counterfeits.
Their prices are not set by Amazon - but Amazon frequently ends up picking up the tab on fraudulent sales, under their own rules.
It's the fraudsters who increase prices for the rest of us, not Amazon.

 

[spottydog10]

Great fix mate, it got me out of a jam.
Question is, why did we have to do this, I've restored ghost images before without this problem.
Any idea why?
Thanks,
Mike

 

[NoelDP]

MS Updates the block list on their validation and activation servers every so often, and Windows checks that list every 90 days - it can take a year or more before a particular Key is discovered to have been abused, and so blocked.

 

[spottydog10]

Hi Noel,
My key is genuine and I have no reason to believe it's been abused so why the block?
Cheers,
Mike

 

[NoelDP]

post your MGADiag report in your OWN NEW thread and we'll take a look.

 

[spottydog10]

Hi Noel,

I'll tell you what led to this problem.
I had the idea of putting Win xp as a dual boot and ran into all kinds of problems relating to the partitioning.
It was after this that the Ghost image seemed to give me the error mentioned above.

Mike

 

[NoelDP]

In that case I probably know what the error message is (and it's fixable) - but I stll need to see an MGADiag report in your own thread to be able to fix it.

 

[spottydog10]

Well, it is fixed now and I'm going to re-ghost in a bit.
I'd rather not send the info, thanks anyway,

Mike

 

[NoelDP]

Suit yourself

 

[alehrke]

Thanks

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.

[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.

Thanks for the tip. Worked great. Now my SSD is working.