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

NoelDP · 09 Nov 2011

jimbo45 said:

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 Complaints do work too since the trading licence of these companies are withdrawn and the directors / business owners fined significantly too).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 · 22 Oct 2012

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 · 22 Oct 2012

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 · 22 Oct 2012

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

NoelDP · 22 Oct 2012

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

spottydog10 · 22 Oct 2012

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 · 22 Oct 2012

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 · 22 Oct 2012

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 · 23 Oct 2012

Suit yourself :)

alehrke · 04 Oct 2013

bxmedic said:

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

Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "\DosDevices\C:".
Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename.

Note You must use Regedit instead of Regedt32 to rename this registry key.
Rename it to an unused drive letter "\DosDevices\Z:".

This frees up drive letter C.
Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "\DosDevices\D:".
Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.
Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "\DosDevices\C:".
Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to "\DosDevices\D:".
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.

KiwiME said:

[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.