Windows 10: Activation problem after hard disk replacement

I bought a Dell laptop 5 years back with windows 8.1 pre-loaded. After some time it was upgraded to Windows 10 without any challenge.


Recently the hard disc crashed and it had to be replaced. The technician retrieved the embedded Windows 8.1 activation key through Powershell, installed windows 8.1 and then successfully activated it. However as per him the option to upgrade to Windows 10 had been withdrawn by Microsoft; so all he could do was to downloaded Windows 10 and successfully install it.


Since then i have tried to activate my Windows 10 using the same key but it does not work, it says "Something prevents us from communicating. . ..... . .Error Code: 0x87E10BCF". Troubleshooting doesn't work. My internet bandwidth is anything from 30 - 80 MBPS so I don't think that may be the cause. Microsoft phone support doesn't understand my pronunciation.


Please help.

:)

 

Windows 10 Enterprise fails to re-activate after hard disk replacement

The system is a laptop where the single hard disk failed and was replaced. Unfortunately, there was no recent, viable backup of the hard disk that could be used to restore it.

A successful clean install was made from en-gb_windows_10_business_edition_version_1803_update_jul_2018_x64_dvd_12613160.iso.

The first login used my Microsoft Work or School account but I was unable to activate it from that account.

I then created a user with my Microsoft Account (which uses the same email address) but was unable to activate it from that account either.

The laptop has a firmware-embedded activation key. It appears in the devices list for my Microsoft Account and also appears in the devices list in the Azure Active Directory which we receive as part of Office 365.

It is a commodity laptop that was supplied with Windows Home installed; upgraded to Windows Pro using Get Genuine; and upgraded to Windows Enterprise with an OS upgrade using a product key. It was regularly updated before the hard disk failure.

I had anticipated that re-activation after the hard disk replacement should have been simple!

Any pointers to where I might be going wrong? Or suggestions as to how to diagnose this? I'm a volunteer systems administrator for a Museum (non-profit / charity) and this is outside my comfort zone.

 

Windows activation, problem anticipation...

I bought a hard-disk to replace the faulty one in my Pentium 4 rig, which has OEM XP Home.

Now the last time I did a clean XP install I had to call MS and they gave me automated numbers to input to re-activate.

Just in case, that this time I have to speak to a human, will they be accepting to re-activate if I tell them (the truth) that I have changed the hard disk?

Or would you suggest something else? *Oh Well hwell:

Thank you.

 

Windows 10 activation after replacing hard disk

Hi,

I have recently just replaced my hard disk suffering from hardware failure on my Windows 10 laptop with a Seagate Firecuda SSHD. I had a friend who offered to reinstall windows for me on my clean SSHD but only to find out that the copy of windows that he
had install for me was pirated.

1. My windows product ID and key are different from before I replaced my hard disk.

2. How do I tell if this is the pirated and cracked windows or genuinely activated copy?

3. Is there a way for me to retrieve or have Microsoft reactivate my windows license? Or is it done automatically by Microsoft?

4. In "Systems" and "Activation", it does say my windows is activated but how can I know if it is genuine and not a cracked copy?

Thank you guys for your help, appreciate it.