Windows 10: Hard drive change in Vista laptop will not activate

I have an Acer laptop with legally installed Vista Home Premium Sticker on the bottom of laptop. Cloned hard drive to larger hard drive. Now Windows will not activate. There is no activate by phone option. It is replaced by contact manufacturer. Acer will not help. Laptop works great for current use other than running out of disk space. How can I get activation code to use phone activation option?

:)

 

How to Partiton a Hard Drive in Vista

This is a way to get Vista to see another hard drive that is not associated with the OS. There is some times when your new hdd doesn't seem to want to work well with Vista. But, there is a solution in it.

Open the Computer Management By doing these steps.

• Click on the Start Button
• Click on Control Panel
• Click Administrative Tools
• Double click on Computer Management

You are now in the Navigation panel of the Computer Management.
When in Computer Management, you then have to allow the new drive to be recognized.

• Double click on Storage
• Double click on Disk Management

Now in the middle of your screen there is the layout of the Disk Drives that you have. The drives that are partitioned will show by the drive lettering. The others will just show up as having nothing at all in them. Below that there will be the Disk drives that are installed into the computer. You'll see that the primary one will all ways read as "Disk 0". Then you will have Disk 1 and so on. Under the Disks there will also see your CD-Rom drives.. If there is more then one, it will be labeled the same as Disk drives..

On to the Partitioning of the drive in question.

• Right Click on the drive
• Click to format the drive or Enable Volume. There will be a series of windows that open up. This is Vista's formatting. Just go threw the windows, and make sure everything is the way you want it to happen.
• Once the formatting is done, will take some time depending on the drive size.
• Right click on the drive
• Click on Mark the Partition as Active

After you have done those steps, The drive will be up and running threw Vista.



:Side Notes:
If you are not the Administer to the Os, then you will have to enable it..
You may also want to redo the drive lettering of it all. But, I really don't see a reason to do so. If you do, you have to redo drive paths and so forth.. A lot of work on something so small...

 

Vista license re-activation when change hard drive

I have a old HP laptop which is running Vista home premium. The license key sticker is attached at the bottom.

I want to change the hard drive now. But I don't have the install CD. I guess I need to download a image to USB drive and install it using the license printed on the sticker.

My question is, since Vista is not technically supported any more, is it possible for me to download a Win10 (home version) image and install it with the old Vista key? I believe, in some time before, it was free to upgrade Vista to Win10.

Thanks!

Sincerely

Butian Xu

 

Vista license re-activation when change hard drive

No, you can't install 10 with a Vista Key.

Vista was never part of the free upgrade to 10; it pertained to 7, 8 and 8.1.

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There are no legal Vista downloads still available.

There should be a HP recovery partition to make HP recovery disks from to reinstall.

Ask HP how to make them.

Or:

You can borrow and use a Microsoft Vista DVD (Retail or OEM System Builders License) , that contains the files for the various Vista Editions (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate) to be installed. The Product Key on your Computer / Laptop
case determines which Edition is installed.

The COA sticker, which has the Product Key on it, is either on the underside of the Laptop or in the Battery Compartment.

With a Desktop it is either on the side, rear or top of the Computer Case.



Other Manufacturers' Recovery DVDs are not to be used for the above purpose.

And you need to know the "bit" version for Vista, as 32bit and 64bit Editions come on different DVDs.

Here is how to do a clean install of Vista, using a Microsoft Vista DVD:

"How to Do a Clean Install and Setup with a Full Version of Vista"

Clean Install with a Full Version of Vista

And once the Operating System is installed, go to your Computer Manufacturer's website and obtain the latest Drivers for your particular Model Computer or Laptop.

When you use Phone Activation don't follow the Auto Prompts but instead hold on for a real person to assist you.

"How to Activate Vista Normally and by Phone Activation"

Activate Vista by Phone

Microsoft is the one who says yay or nay for Activation.

You have to go through them, but lately a lot of posters have been referred back to here by them when using phone activation.

If that happens use this method of contacting Microsoft:

Contact support

Contact Us - Microsoft Support

Also:
https://partner.support.services.microsoft.com/en-au/contact/menu/software/windows/setup/

Cheers.