Bios and Serial "Copied"?

Fred Claus

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Grand Island, NY
Just had a client leave a message. She wants me to re-install windows on her Lenovo. Said this will be the fourth time it's been done. This time it's because her bios and serial number say "copied". I've never heard of this, but if this is the fourth time she's had to reinstall windows and the all the components were already replaced inside the computer by Lenovo already, there has to be something else up.

I have to call her back on Monday since I am not working today. Is there anything I should look at before just re-installing windows?
 
Reads like a scam email to me.. as if reinstalling Windows would "fix" a "copied BIOS and serial number".. lol!
 
By "copied" maybe does she mean it's not activating or saying the Windows activation code is coming back as not genuine? The BIOS may be storing the activation key and if it's been re-activated too many times it could be flagged? That's my first thoughts, without seeing it.
 
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Yeah... numbers delivered by the tier ones are solid. Now if her mainboard was replaced, the OEM should have provided a new key too... these usually come on cards. No reinstall is required, you just feed it to the activation wizard.
 
OEM's are responsible for OS activations that shipped with the machine. From personal experience HPs' had their tattoo tool that allowed the changes to be made. But the boards were usually shipped populated with the new information from what I remember. The tattoo tool was just used to setup the correct feature set for that machine so it would load the correct drivers and apps.
 
Forgot to tell you all, I figured out what she was talking about. Turns out it was a Lenovo desktop and she wanted to use the Lenovo Vantage app. The Bios and serial number don't show up in the app and it says "Copy" next to the blank space because you should be able to copy it. I ran some scans and my software does show the serial number and Bios so it's a problem with the Vantage app. I finally got her to just not worry about it. She doesn't need it anyway.
 
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