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Peter Mortensen
Asked: 2010-07-16 05:51:32 +0800 CST

After imaging a drive, you receive the message "This copy of Windows is not Genuine" on Windows 7

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I recently imaged the hard drive in my computer to a new SSD drive hoping to be able to quickly and easily swap the original drive with the new SSD drive. When I booted to Windows after installing the newly imaged drive I noticed that Windows displayed a message in the lower right hand corner of the desktop that said:

"This copy of Windows is not genuine".

Windows Explorer did not appear, and it appeared that I couldn't actually do anything with the computer.

The question is, how can you avoid this message after imaging a drive (rather than having to re-install Windows and all other applications on the new drive)?

windows-7 image ghost

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I'm posting the steps I used to solve this issue in case anyone else runs into this issue. This may not be the only or best way to solve this issue, but these steps worked for me.

    1. Boot into Safe Mode
    2. Ctrl+Alt+Del
    3. Start Task Manager
    4. New Task --> regedit.exe
    5. Locate the following registry key
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
    6. Find the drive letter you want to change to (usually your C drive). Look for \DosDevices\C:
    7. Right-click \DosDevices\C: and click Rename
    8. Rename it to an unused drive letter e.g. "\DosDevices\Z:"
      • This will free up drive letter C
    9. Find the drive letter you want changed. In my case it was "\DosDevices\F:"
    10. Right-click on the drive letter and select Rename.
    11. Rename the drive to the appropriate letter (e.g. "\DosDevices\C:")
    12. Exit Regedit and restart the computer.
    13. You may be prompted to reactivate Windows.
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  2. I also cloned by with dd using ubuntu and hit the same problem. To avoid all the above.

    1. first boot with just the new hdd plugged in where the old one was (so bios prioritizes it). Check all is well.
    2. plug the old hdd into another slot, wipe it in ubuntu or whatever. When doing this maybe unplug the new hdd for safety
    3. plug new hdd back into original slot again and boot with both

    And to answer the actual question

    1. Ignore the "Your windows in not genuine" dialogue it will only prompt you to buy a new copy - useless
    2. Windows key + pause break choose enter product code or simply type Activate Windows into start bar
    3. enter your original OEM product key and you are done
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