Your Win 7 is NOT genuine + no motherboard for you?

We have 2x Win 7 desktops at home. Both 100 percent genuine. And again both my Win 7 CDs are genuine.

All day my wife has appeared to have no net access yet in desperation we selected win7 updates. They miraculously downloaded & installed then came the dreaded Your copy is not genuine.

Grabbed a spare HDD & the motherboard won't even initiate. Just a nasty lonely little blinking cursor

Has MS "genuine" done this or just a co-incidence?

Do you have 2 different product keys?

Yes of course. We are two senior citizens. Not kids. We & our PCs live bland lives.

I have plugged in a new HDD blank + Win 7 CD rom. The PC gets to the MB welcome screen PRESS F12 to select boot device ----- then nothing but a blinking cursor. No MB intialization proceedure one is used to seeing. nothing. Why did u ask that 'accusing' question? Has MS done this via their own incompetence?

Can you identify for us if your Win7 discs are OEM or Retail?
"OEM" is usually written on the packaging of the disc or on the booklet that comes with it.

The CD case says Win 7 Home Prem OEM software.

Hello,

I'm perfectly certain there is no "accusation" involved in my previous question and anything after that.

These are deductive questions I ask to easily isolate the issue. If answered accordingly, people will get a better hold of your current issue and come up with a solution.

OK. A stressful situation here for me. sorry.

Yes, I understand. :)

OEMs are restricted to the PC they were first activated on. For example, if you use your OEM Win7 and activated it on PC 1, it "binds" to PC 1. Is the licence used by the problematic PC been activated somewhere else beforehand?

(We have to clear the common culprit issues first.)

No. nothing like that happened. It was a functioning PC until this morning. Malware can be the only culprit. (my guess). But my wife isn't aware of anything she "did" & I haven't a clue. But wrong CD / wrong Key is not on the list.