moved hard drive to new case and now cant log onto windows

[sosus]

my gateway died on me recently so I built a new, better, faster, sleeeker computer. I moved my harddrive over to my new case from my old gateway and when I power on my new pc it is asking me to "activate windows".

I am confused, I am not using windows on 2 pc's. I am taking the hard drive out of one case and putting it into another. Is this a violation of the license?


oh, and when I click on yes to activate windows, a whilte box opens up. Thats is. nothing else, nothing appears in the white box. Im perplexed.

help me fellow computer people help me.

[diver203_98]

Welcome to PCMech.

When your new system asks you to activate windows, it is because of the major changes in hardware of going from your Gateway to your new system. It was setup on the hardware profile of the Gateway, and with all the new hardware it senced, it asked you to activate windows. So, the short of the story is: If you can slave the harddrive to another (friends or family system) you should be able to back up all your files, folders and settings. Hopefully that is an option. But what you will need to do is either do an over the top install of windows or reformat and partition, and a clean install of windows. That way it will be on your new hardware profile of your new system. But, like you are being asked to activate windows now, you will also be asked to activate windows after you do the over the top, or the clean install.

HTH and good luck.

[Big Weapons]

Call microsoft, ask for a new key. They shouldn't give you any trouble.

[piasabird]

You have to have the chipset drivers for the new motherboad. Most likely when you just move a hard drive it will not work correctly. You are better off reinstalling windows.

[sosus]

update-

I did a repair install of windows. Everything workks fine now. Apparently windows was "used to" my old configuration and would not work with the new one, which was why it was asking me to activate windows.