Windows 10: Intermittent Windows 10 deactivation after cloning hard drive and upgrading hardware

I recently built a new computer and cloned my old hard drive to a new hard drive. I have intermittently been seeing a "Activate Windows" prompt which sometimes disappears after restarting. When I try to reactivate Windows 10, it fails, and then I select the option stating that I recently changed my hardware. I find my computer to activate, and when I click activate, it gives me an error again.


I tried to call Microsoft Support, but they asked for product key which I do not have anymore. I upgraded from Windows 7 5 years ago, and I had bought Windows 7 from my university at the time. I do not have proof of purchase since the receipt was sent to an old e-mail account that no longer exists. My Microsoft account is linked with my software, but the tech support folks said they do not have access to my account. They gave me two separate phone numbers for technicians with that level of access, but it always landed me back with the customer service agents that did not have access. I have been able to extract my CD key using online software, but I'm not sure what to do with it.


How can I stop this activation error from coming up so frequently?


Thank you!

:)

 

Intermittent Windows 10 deactivation after cloning hard drive and upgrading hardware

I recently built a new computer and cloned my old hard drive to a new hard drive. I have intermittently been seeing a "Activate Windows" prompt which sometimes disappears after restarting. When I try to reactivate Windows 10, it fails, and then I select
the option stating that I recently changed my hardware. I find my computer to activate, and when I click activate, it gives me an error again.

I tried to call Microsoft Support, but they asked for product key which I do not have anymore. I upgraded from Windows 7 5 years ago, and I had bought Windows 7 from my university at the time. I do not have proof of purchase since the receipt was sent to
an old e-mail account that no longer exists. My Microsoft account is linked with my software, but the tech support folks said they do not have access to my account. They gave me two separate phone numbers for technicians with that level of access, but it always
landed me back with the customer service agents that did not have access. I have been able to extract my CD key using online software, but I'm not sure what to do with it.

How can I stop this activation error from coming up so frequently?

Thank you!

 

Cloning from 1TB to 2TB hard drive

Hello, Migrating a 1TB Hard Drive to a 2TB HDD is very possible.

My Rig started out on just 160GB, when I upgraded HDDs, I cloned my 160 GB into a newly bought 500GB HDD. (it was an OS HDD)

Then on the next HDD upgrade(I bought a 1 TB) I cloned that 500GB to a 1 TB HDD.

No problems at all.

From what I can remember the program I used was Acronis?? I forgot. But it ran the cloning process outside of windows. the cloning took like 30 to 1 hr. then I switched drive letters and the newly bought HDD is now my boot device.

 

Cloning from 1TB to 2TB hard drive

Whats a good free imaging/cloning program? I have a 1TB hard drive with Win7 and I want to seamlessly migrate my stuff to a 2TB hard drive. Any suggestions?