Windows 10: had to replace HD and can't upgrade to win 10

my hard drive was going bad so decided to replace, but before i did i upgraded the old drive to win 10 thinking i could just use a old win 7 DVD to install win to download and upgrade back to win 10 on the new drive using the media creation tool for win upgrade this PC option, but it's still asks for a activation key tried using the original activation key from the laptop then tried using the activation key from the win 7 install disk i used neither worked

on a side note can i still just keep the non activated win 7 install on my laptop and watch internet streams and serf the web and play games not going to be able to use internet on my desktop soon till i get a new provider in a cpl months and am hoping i can just use the laptop at the library to bridge the gap till then

:)

 

One windows copy for multiply computers

Win 10 (unlessed purchased) is an upgrade.

1-if you upgraded your "genuine" win 7 to win 10 it is for that computer only

2-The free upgrade is finished so you cannot re-install win 7 then upograde for free

3-Once a computer is upgraded to win 10 and activated you can always re-install win 10 & or replace the HD. You Cant take the old HD and use it on a new motherboard.

 

Windows Pro 7 to Windows 10 success, then months later crash. Won't recognize the old Win 7 Key. What to do.

Success on free upgrade to Win 10 from Win 7 Pro. Then HD crash. Changed HD and reinstalled Win 10 but will not recognize the Key used for original 7 that was stuck on the bottom of a used PC friend bought. How do I fix this problem. Friend had Win 10
but I can't get it back for her? Do I have to go back to Win 7 and forget Win 10? Thanks, Pat

 

If you had a properly upgraded AND activated Win10 system on the old drive, you should be able to simply clean install Win10 onto your new drive, just skip any prompt for a product key in clean install as your machine's hardware hash/ID should have already been recorded on the MS activation servers and will usually recognize the machine if anything other than the motherboard has been changed out.

If the Win10 upgrade was NOT properly activated, then you would need to install Win7, get it activated with the Win7 product key, update it to SP1, and THEN do the free Win10 upgrade.

I'm assuming you had any user data you wanted to keep and 3rd party software installs and keys saved separately for restore after reinstalling Win7, so clean install of Win10 is a good option at this point (as long as the upgrade to Win10 activated prior to removing old drive).

For guidance on clean install of Win10, see Brink's Tutorial here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...n-install.html

 

ya that's what i thought but the next button was still greyed out i could still install the old hard drive with the upgraded win 10 on maybe see if it was activated correctly if not maybe i'll have to try downloading win 10 for the 3rd time and see if i can get past the asking for activation key part since i only changed the hard drive out

 

but the Skip button probably wasn't. Check out the tutorial @ Step 7.

 

Using the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool, there is no need to upgrade the Windows 7 to SP1 before doing the upgrade to Windows 10.

To the OP: what version of the Windows 7 are you trying to install and what version of Windows 7 is your product key for? Will the Windows 7 refuse to accept the product key, or will it just refuse to activate online. If it accepts the product key, but refuses to activate online, have you tried calling the activation phone number and doing it over the phone?

 

Thanks, I missed that, and will remember for next time.

 

but, if he was doing a proper upgrade from a properly activated Windows 7, then Windows 10 upgrade would not be asking for a product key at all. Since he has the Windows 7 already installed, the absolute best course of action would be to try to get the Windows 7 to activate before upgrading.

 

think i'll try and make a win 10 upgrade disk from the media creation tool so i don't keep having to download the upgrade agine maybe that will fix it maybe try swaping out the new drive for the old one

 

well i can't get anything to work i downloaded and redownloaded win 10 twice last night as a upgrade this machine or create a disk to upgrade another machine and i keep getting a dialoge box that asks for a product key and there is no skip button just next and back

 

Are you still trying to upgrade the non-activated Windows 7? If you are, that is why you don't have the skip option. Or the version of Windows 10 that you downloaded does not match the version of Windows 7 you are trying to upgrade from.

 

k sort got it working and figured out what went wrong used the original key from my laptop and when i installed win 7 from the disks i used on my desktop it and it got confused so changed the key to the disks i reinstalled win 7 from and it activated it and looks like i can now upgrade it to win 10 you would think though that they could keep track of multiple copys if your licenced OS's so if you do have to reinstall the OS to a new hard drive and you use the other machines disks it would still allow you to activate it

 

Microsoft never did enforce keeping the OEM license on the original computer for Windows 7 unless it was greatly abused such as posting it on the internet. You must have had a product mismatch between the desktop discs and laptop product key such as pro vs. home or OEM vs. Retail.

Microsoft is trying to enforce OEM licenses staying on one computer now for Windows 10 by using the Hardware ID activation scheme - as a result, they are converting moveable retail licenses of Windows 7/8/8.1 to non-moveable Windows 10 OEM licenses during the free upgrade process.