Windows 10: Hardware Upgrade prevents Windows 10 Authentication

Hi everyone,


I upgraded the motherboard, cpu, ram and added some fast storage to my PC. I bought Windows 10 3 years ago on a much older hardware spec.


After the upgrade I was able to boot back into windows, but after a few minutes I saw an 'authenticate windows' stamp in the lower right hand part of the screen.


I checked under Activation and my product key was there the last few digits showed there and it said that it could not authenticate my windows.


I tried repeatedly to use the troubleshooter and also clicked the 'changed hardware' option - nothing worked. I tried calling, and couldn't find the right part in the menus to address this.


Basically: I purchased Windows 10 3 years ago and now after a hardware upgrade Activation keeps pointing me to buy another copy on the Store.


Question: Do I honestly have to pay another USD 200 to buy Windows 10 when I bought it just 3 years ago, and because I did a hardware overhaul? I hope not - and, if not - can anyone please help me figure out how to make this work? I just formatted all my drives and did a clean install and the authenticated Windows 10 Pro is no longer associated with my account.

:)

 

Windows 10 upgrade problem, no input accepted

I really hate having to come here and ask for help, but I really am stumped. It hurts my geek pride. I have a PC with fairly modern hardware in it. It has a p8p67 pro in it. I have tried upgrading windows 10 on it twice now. Both times I have had the same result.

After windows finishes upgrading it goes to the log in/set up screen. I can't do anything. No keyboard or mouse input is accepted.

I will list some, or hopefully all, of the troubleshooting steps I have tried:

• Move keyboard and mouse to different USB ports.
• Try different keyboard or mouse.
• Restart computer, repeatedly.
• Google for related issues.
• Update Bios, because why not.
• Create boot media and revert to windows 7.

The windows 10 system restore boot media works fine with keyboard and mouse. All USB ports work in windows 7. I don't know what is wrong. I suspect that windows 10 is lacking a driver of some sort, but since the computer accepts no input I have no way of checking for which driver let alone installing it.

Please help me figure this out. If I have to revert back to windows 7 again, I am not going to get it upgraded to windows 10. Thank you in advanced.

 

Windows 10 upgrade rant..

The free space shouldn't prevent you from upgrading to built 1607. I manually upgraded my own laptop which had only 9gigs free space left on the system drive.

I unzipped the Windows 10 Pro anniversary edition ISO on my D drive, and started the upgrade process from there. At one point the installer complained about not having enough free space on the main drive, i just had to point it to the D drive to proceed to the next step. Now the rollback installation is stored there and doesn't clog up the C drive anymore.

In your case you could insert a large sdcard to act as the required rollback drive, i'm pretty sure it would do the trick.

Oh and by the way, if you want to further compress your System files:

• do a search Command Prompt, right-click it, and select Run as administrator.
• Type COMPACT.EXE /CompactOS:always and hit Enter.

You'll will gain anything from 2 to 4 gigs free space after it's done.

 

Windows 10 upgrade problem, no input accepted

i've seen this when the stock USB drivers went kaput. Only ever seen it once - i used a PCI USB 2.0 card and connected the mouse and keyboard to that, and manually updated the USB 2/USB 3 drivers.