Windows 10: Windows Activation fails in a cloned VM

I only use Windows 10 in a virtual machine VirtualBox running under linux. My normal strategy has been to install, activate, and update a Windows VM, which I tag with the name "pristine". I then clone the pristine copy and use only the clone as my working copy of Windows. The reason for this should be obvious; this way if I completely mess things up, I can just delete the clone and re-clone from pristine. Of course I never actually run the pristine copy of Windows and only have one active clone at a time. I never had a problem with this with Windows 8.1. This seems not to work any more

:)

 

Windows 10 VM activation

Hi,

I am trying to setup two Windows 10 vms for test purposes on Ovirt virtualization cluster. (Windows 10 Pro with MAK key from visual studio (MSDN) subscription).

Activation of the first vm encountered no problem, but activation of the second one failed. I have tried to setup second vm by all available means (by cloning from the first one with or without sysprep, from activated state or from clean installed snapshot,
by installing second vm from scratch, etc.). All are with the same results: The last product key you entered XXXXX can't be used on this copy of Windows (0xC0EA0003).

Is it possible to have several Win 10 vms on the same hypervisor, activated with MAK key?

Any suggestions are highly appreciated.

 

Failing HDD and Cloning

You seem intend on this install clean install windows when I have said windows does not run on that drive and TeraCopy doesn't even budge anymore.
for moving files from that drive. Then there are those that have suggested imaging and 1 or 2 that talked about cloning software.

I now have 3 HDDs left...

So nothing is copying, no cloning and imaging, now what?

 

Failing HDD and Cloning

Programs like Tera Copy can be useful for such tasks since they provide faster copying and they have a list of processed files. If it fails, you know instantly what file failed and you can also resume or restart file copy/move operations. Tera Copy is a free program so give it a try.

Cloning is for drives that are in perfect mechanical/electronic condition but have a corrupted partition or parasitic virus infection. You clone the drive and then you can repeatedly perform data salvaging tasks without the risk of degrading data and making it unrecoverable forever. If recovering fails, you just restore the drive and start all over.

Something you can't afford on failing drives, because they will interrupt the data cloning process. And when it fails, you have to do it all over again.