Booting Problem related to Windows not genuine error

Thank you for your response.

So I used FREE Rescue Kit Express | PARAGON Software Group as you described. I correctly reassigned the partitions, but when I rebooted the computer, once again I got the longer than normal boot where it said "Preparing your desktop..." and the "This copy of Windows is not genuine."
I just checked and somehow windows changed all the drives letters back to the incorrect one. Now I'm really stumped. Any ideas now?

Yes, that is normal - after you correct the letters with Paragon - on first reboot, you will still get the not genuine message - but it goes away .

Paragon did that - not Windows.

Actually, what I meant was the reassignment of drives didn't work. When Windows booted it went back to the incorrect assignments for some reason. I tried it twice to no avail.

But then I re-read Prodigy's instructions and realized I was skipping over the very first instruction to boot into Safe mode. That made the difference. I followed these instructions and wa-la - my computer is back.

BIG thanks to SIW2, Prodigy and all who posted their findings here. Greatly appreciated.

1. Boot windows in safe mode
2. After loading, there should be a blank screen with no desktop, press ctrl+alt+del
3. Click Start Task Manager
4. Click File then Run
5. type regedit.exe then press enter
6. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
7. Try to remember your old working drive letter, mine was drive D, and windows changed its drive letter to C. So i swapped the D and C paths in the registry; now windows knows to access the correct drive to boot.
8. To swap drives, find the drive letter you want changed, it should look something like "\DosDevices\C:" where "C" is the drive letter you need swapped.
9. Right click on the key and rename it to a drive letter that is not in use, for example, I renamed mine to "\DosDevices\Z:" This will free up the letter that you need swapped.
10. Right click on the other key and rename it to the first key's letter, for example, if i wanted the D drive swapped with C, I would now rename "\DosDevices\D:" to "\DosDevices\C:".
11. Now rename "\DosDevices\Z:" (Which was previously "\DosDevices\C:") to "\DosDevices\D:"
12. The drive letters are now successfully swapped, close regedit and reboot, tell me if it worked!!

I may have spoke to soon. While the computer is working, this might be a problem having to do with Prodigy's solution. I'm not sure. I noticed that the System Restore protection was turned off. When I went in to turn it on, I received the following error message, "Could not apply the settings for the following reason: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. (0x8007007B)"

Any ideas about this?

Yes , that will work. It is the old way of doing it - usually you try to run diskmgmt first - to see the new drive letter - that makes it easier to identify the correct reg entry you want to change.

The Paragon app.does exactly the same thing - it just makes it a lot easier.

I have never heard of it not working before.

Finnyd said:

Actually, what I meant was the reassignment of drives didn't work. When Windows booted it went back to the incorrect assignments for some reason. I tried it twice to no avail.

But then I re-read Prodigy's instructions and realized I was skipping over the very first instruction to boot into Safe mode. That made the difference. I followed these instructions and wa-la - my computer is back.

BIG thanks to SIW2, Prodigy and all who posted their findings here. Greatly appreciated.

1. Boot windows in safe mode
2. After loading, there should be a blank screen with no desktop, press ctrl+alt+del
3. Click Start Task Manager
4. Click File then Run
5. type regedit.exe then press enter
6. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
7. Try to remember your old working drive letter, mine was drive D, and windows changed its drive letter to C. So i swapped the D and C paths in the registry; now windows knows to access the correct drive to boot.
8. To swap drives, find the drive letter you want changed, it should look something like "\DosDevices\C:" where "C" is the drive letter you need swapped.
9. Right click on the key and rename it to a drive letter that is not in use, for example, I renamed mine to "\DosDevices\Z:" This will free up the letter that you need swapped.
10. Right click on the other key and rename it to the first key's letter, for example, if i wanted the D drive swapped with C, I would now rename "\DosDevices\D:" to "\DosDevices\C:".
11. Now rename "\DosDevices\Z:" (Which was previously "\DosDevices\C:") to "\DosDevices\D:"
12. The drive letters are now successfully swapped, close regedit and reboot, tell me if it worked!!

Type SystemPropertiesProtection.exe in start search box.

When it pops up , find the drive with the folder icon.



Highlight it.

Click Configure.

Dot "Turn off system restore" for that drive. Apply . OK.

Then make sure it is turned on for your other drive (s).

I know this is old but I have a bit of a problem...


I have windows vista ultimate on an acre aspire laptop and one day out of nothing, when I booted it up it showed me a black "Windows not genuine" screen.

I tried prodigy's solution but when I try and open SYSTEM it says it's already in use.

Help I really need my computer back. It's my only one.

Ok never mind now...

I found SYSTEM in another folder and tried to keep going with the instructions. I rebooted and it said in a black screen that it needed to be reinstalled because of new hardware. I don't have the disk, my laptop came with vista. By the way, this screen came up before I clicked to log in... It came up during the boot up. Please help, I am really stuck here.

No I can't save that program to the desktop because I can't access the desktop, it says I need to reinstall it doesn't even go to the log in screen