Windows 10: Unable to activate windows after hdd change

I have a HP laptop that was purchased with OEM version of windows 8 which was later upgraded to windows 10. Now because of an issue with bad hard drive, I had to change and reinstall windows 10 home. However, the system is not getting recognized by windows account. I could see my laptop listed when I attempted to manage my Microsoft account.


Need help in reactivating the windows. Following is the error that I receive when I attempted to activate and troubleshoot.

Also, the toll free number **** suggested by the bot seem to be incorrect. It says it is a invalid number.




:)

 

unlock hdd

Hi Johan,

It is possible that your
HDD was unreadable
causing the error message to appear. We recommend that you perform these troubleshooting steps and check if there are any changes:

• 
  Shutdown
  your
  PC.
  
• 
  Unhooked
  the
  HDD
  and
  turn on
  your
  PC.
  
• 
  Reconnect
  your
  HDD
  and
  restart
  your
  PC.
  

If the issue persists, we suggest that you contact your
laptop/computer's manufacturer
for further assistance.

Update us on how it goes.

Regards.

 

unlock hdd

 

Activating windows 10 after changing HDD

My problem is solved, by doing the following steps.

1. Remove the SSD and put the old HDD back in -start up the laptop with the old activated config.

2. Ran slmgr.vbs /ato as admin and installed all Windows updates.

3. Make sure you're logged in on your Microsoft account -I also turned on the sync setting to all my devices(not sure if it's needed).

4. shutdown, remove the HDD & put the SSD back in -startup the laptop with the new ssd.

5. The clean windows 10 install is still not activated -same error code 0xC004C003.

6. restart the laptop in to advanced boot options(or boot from the boot-able windows 10 installation).

7. Reset your pc & remove all files.

8. Login to the same Microsoft account as in step 3 when the wizard asks for it.

9. After the setup was done, my windows 10 installation was activated! All of my drivers were still installed as well, so that was definitely a nice thing..

Before doing this I also phoned support and they just told me to wait, I suggest you don't as I've seen loads of stories on the forums of people who've been waiting for +1month.

It seems like Microsoft is giving out the same(blocked) activation key(*****-8HVX7) to everyone doing a clean install after changing hardware/ upgrading w/o waiting for all windows updates.