Windows 10: Windows 10 install, its a long story

Completely false. Windows activation is NEVER tied to a hard drive. It is tied to the Hardware ID and the Hardware ID is 99% a result of the motherboard. Repetitive use will block a Product Key from automatic online activation - that has nothing to do with what hard drive it was activated on. When a Windows 7/8/8.1 is blocked from online activation due to repetitive use, you cannot activate Windows 10 with it. You have to re-install the Windows 7/8/8.1 that the product key is for, then use phone activation where you tell the computer voice that it is installed on only one computer and activate the Windows 7/8/8.1 via the code returned on the phone. Then you can move on to Windows 10 once that activation is tied to that computer's (actually the motherboard's) hardware ID.

After a certain period of time of not using the product key for activations (I believe 6 months) the block from automatic online activation is removed.

 

Well, all I can tell you is that when I tried to activate it yesterday, on a different hard drive, and i went through the phone activation portion (which I did previously, only 1 time) it wouldn't even give me a code, it said something to the effect of 'This transaction cannot be completed because this key has been blocked' and hung up on me. No options, no 'let me connect you with someone in a country far, far away'. 30 minutes later, back on the 'original' HD, I plugged that ridiculous 32 digit number that i received the first time around, and away we went.
You obviously have the skills to pay the bills, so I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, but my one experience yesterday dos not jive with your statement, sorry. Its certainly possible I clicked the wrong place, or chose the wrong choice, but...

 

Good to hear you're back in business.
Now, for your own sake, download the Free Macrium Reflect and start creating image backups. You don't wanna go through all those hurdles again.
https://www.tenforums.com/software-ap...ct-update.html

 

You might be misunderstanding something because NavyLCDR is absolutely correct. I have done it myself dozens of times and Microsoft has confirmed it on several occasions that this is correct information.

 

Hi there, guys, long time no speak. Everything was going smimmingly...Windows 10 installed...and then, one day, i got the BSD with [something like] "unlocatable boot device"

After trying all the recommended fixes, without luck, I figured, well, I hate myself, why not re-install Windows 7 on this computer again? ANyway, short story long, i FINALLY got a live person on the phone at microsoft today to activate, and they're telling me the program is pirated and I am SOL.

Caveat, I bought it off of ebay, but the seller had very high satisfaction score, and the disk worked fine the first time around.
I've had to re-install it probably 4 times on this same computer, but it has been in my posession the whole time.

So, I've reached out to the ebay seller to see what their stance is, but surely someone else out there has had a similar situation? Really bummed out because I wont likely get this fixed before the Windows 10 free download expires in 3 days...

 

You've had Windows 10 on this computer fully activated and running before, right? So this might seem like a silly question, but I have to ask what does the July 29th deadline have to do with anything? You can reinstall Windows 10 any time you want to - as long as it is the same version (Home or Pro) that you had on the same computer that had it installed and activated on it before.

 

Well, well, that is something that had not occurred to me...even if I've totally wiped the HD, almighty Windows will somehow recognize it? Even though I cannot apparently activate my copy of Windows 7? Can you walk me through that process? Because I feel like at some point Windows 10 is going to ask me for some code of some kind, no???

Incidentally, the ebay seller reponded thusly..."Each activation key will active just one windows. Doesn't matter is that the same system or not. When you are installing the new windows that means all the old files removed from your computer and you have new windows and then you need the new activation key. Some of the activation key are for 3 or 5 times activation and those are expensive."

Does this make sense to anyone? I'm (clearly) not familiar with a one-time-use license...so if they're correct I may as well just turn the CD into a coaster, because I can never use it again?!?!?

And, as always, thank you navyLCDR!

 

You got scammed by the EBay seller. Microsoft does not care how many times you use the same product key on the same computer. And if it is a properly safeguarded retail product key, they cannot limit how many computers that product key gets transferred to - so long as it is on only 1 computer at a time. Microsoft will only block a product key if they see hundreds of activations of it.

Read this webpage:
Windows 10

Click on +Using the media creation tool
+Performing a clean installation using a USB or DVD
Then the blue or grey Note box:

The first option to skip the product key will actually be "I don't have a product key"

 

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Well NavyLCDR, I followed your advice, and everything was looking [suspiciously] good, and then I got the " we couldn’t create a new partition or locate an existing one"

In hindsight, I'm certain I received this message last time, and I was eventually "forced" to re-install Windows 7!
I tried everything last night...deleted partitions created new partitions, formatted partitions, all to no avail.

Then i found one site that recommended physically pulling any HDD except the one you're installing onto. Did that, still no dice. Apparently it has something to do with booting from the USB stick, but I haven't worked through the BIOS nightmare that people recommend...("disable, boot, enable...")

The one bright side (which you already knew of course) is that Window 10 seems to recognize that I already put Windows 10 on there, as it asks me if i want to install Home or Pro and shows the date i originally installed it. So that is mildly comforting.

So, once again, I'm now left with no operating system at all (since I deleted my partitions last night) and am at my wits end to get Window 10 from USB stick to HD.

soooooo, can you please walk me through the CMND line prompts to format a 'new' HDD that I will install with nothing on it,

and/or

can you walk me through this 'unplug your USB, then reboot, hide all of your boot stuff, reboot, then manually boot from your usb stick" trick that seems to work for everybody else? This sounds like what i did in the first place, so I'm not sure how this will eliminate the issue...

a thousand blessings on you good sir.

 

1. How did you create the Windows 10 USB flash drive? The easiest and most reliable way is to run the Media Creation Tool and select the option to just let it create the flash drive for you:
Windows 10

People like to use RUFUS, or diskpart, or other methods of creating the flash drive, but if you aren't 100% exactly sure what you are doing, letting the Media Creation Tool is the easiest and most reliable way. I also recommend using a USB 2.0 flash drive, not a USB 3.0 flash drive - people have had problems with the 3.0 flash drives. I also recommend making sure to plug the flash drive into a black USB 2.0 port on the computer and not a blue USB 3.0 port on the computer. This is because not all motherboards support USB 3.0 before Windows drivers load.

2. Booting from the flash drive is a BIOS/UEFI firmware setting or option. It's hard to walk you through that exactly because each computer is different. In general there are about 3 ways to do it. One way is to go into BIOS/UEFI setup and change the permanent boot order to boot from USB first, then hard drive. Whenever a flash drive is inserted the computer will boot from it first. This means that when you install Windows from a flash drive, when the computer reboots during installation you have to pull the flash drive out.

The second common method is to go into BIOS/UEFI setup and sometimes (not always) one the last exit and save option screen usually there will be boot override options. You would select USB there to boot from the USB flash drive that single time. The next reboot after that will go back to the preset order, which is probably hard drive first.

The third common method is to press and/or hold down a specific key immediately after pressing the power button. It could be ESC, DEL, INS, F2, F12 depending on the computer. This will bring up the boot options menu and let you override the preset boot order and you would select USB there.

Without sitting at your computer or knowing exactly which options are available, it's hard to tell you exactly how to do that.

3. It is very good advice to have only the hard drive/SSD that you are going to install Windows 10 install connected and all others disconnected. This is so you know the boot files are going to that same drive and not one of the other ones.

4. Once you boot into the USB flash drive or DVD (DVDs sometimes boot when USB flash drives won't), then it's pretty simple. Once you get to the option screen that says Upgrade install or Custom install - click on Custom install. You should get a list of hard drives and partitions on the hard drive. On the hard drive you want to install Windows 10 to you will select each partition on it and click delete. When you get down to nothing but 1 unallocated space on the drive, it has been completely erased. Then you will select the unallocated space and just click Next to let Windows set up the partitions it wants and install Windows 10.

After that point, if the computer happens to reboot into the USB flash drive or DVD during the install and you get the first install choice screen again - just pull out the flash drive or eject the DVD and reboot the computer and setup will pick up again from the hard drive or SSD and continue.

 

Why not filed with paypal or ebay for your pirated version ? meantime get a legit one from ebay or others, otherwise you are just spinning your wheel, once MS knows the key code is pirated, you will not be activated.

 

1. created the USB stick as you suggested; just let windows do it's thing.
2. I know how to access my BIOS, and change boot orders and such, but the suggestion for this "we can't create a partition" business is somewhat confusing. Basically (it sounds like) you're supposed to tell your computer to boot from a hard drive, and then reboot and trick it into booting from the USB stick. But logically that would seem to take you back to the same problem. see the last paragraph here: Fixing "Couldn't Create a New Partition" Error When Installing Windows 10
3. Understood.
4. Well, that's basically what I did last night, although you don't have the option to delete a few of the smaller "reserved" partitions...So tonight I'll grab a different Hard drive, wipe everything off of it, and try...again...

Will give you an update ASAP. Fingers crossed...

 

You only get the option to delete the partitions on the hard drive when you boot from the USB flash drive or DVD. That is what you need to figure out how to do.

 

Indeed. I'm absolutely booting from the USB drive, no issue there. but when it brings up the HDs and list of partitions, there are several very small (~100MB?) partitions that, when you click on them, the "DELETE" button ghosts out, so I literally cannot delete them. One is called "Reserved" or "OEM Reserved" or something like that...

What is strange is that, either way, I've deleted and formatted plenty of space of the HD itself, so there *SHOULD* be no problem for Windows 10 to create a new partition there. I believe the issue is the USB stick/BIOS confusion. Thanks for your patience with me. *Smile

 

What I would suggest, then is to read my quote in the middle of the OP here:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

Download Kyhi's recovery drive. Mount the ISO file. On your Windows 10 installation USB flash drive, in the sources folder. rename the boot.wim file to boot.bak. Copy the boot.wim file from the sources folder in the mounted ISO file of Kyhi's recovery drive to the sources folder on the Windows 10 USB flash drive. Then boot the problem computer with the modified Windows 10 USB flash drive. It will boot into Kyhi's recovery. Run MiniTool Partition Wizard and try to wipe the problem hard drive with that. If that is successful, then just use file explorer to run setup.exe from the USB flash drive and that will start Windows setup just like if you booted directly into Windows setup from the flash drive.