Compaq validation problem

[Styxbound]

A couple of weeks ago I acquired an old Compaq with the sata ports literally ripped off the board. Cleaned up the mess, slapped in a pata drive and installed my old faithful xp home. It absolutely would not validate. So I took the original sata drive, hooked it up with an adapter, and reinstalled off the recovery petition. Again, would not validate. Finally, just for fun, I installed my brand-new windows 7 which I just got from Newegg; it comes up with the message, "this is not a genuine windows system".

What's the deal here, guys; any ideas?

 

[Styxbound]

Validation

Where are all the diagnosticians when you need one...? Looks like I'm going to have to pull out my shotgun and voodoo doll to solve this. Oh well...

 

[shamrin]

Well, you're being a little conservative with the information about what you are doing and since there is a bit of a movement around here this week to demand details...

If I've got it right, you're second attempt was to use the original Compaq recovery partition to do a complete reinstall right? How is that not validating? I don't think I've ever seen a Recovery Partition restore ask for a product key. Is it actually asking for a product key and that's failing to validate or is it failing Windows Genuine Advantage or is it failing at Activation? Or is it failing in some other way?

If it's asking for a product key, don't key it in and let the install complete, then try and put the product key it at activation time. If that still doesn't work, and you've got a valid COA sticker, call Microsoft, they'll validate your COA and then send you a file that will fix the validation.

If you're failing somewhere else, you need to give more details.

 

[Styxbound]

Validation

Thanks for replying, Shamrin. The whole idea was to pass wga to get mse. On the first try I couldn't get a connection to the activation and keychange screen so I just went directly to ms keychange then tried to validate, which failed. '

On the recovery petition installation I didn't need the key of course, just the validation. That failed as well.

Third, the windows 7 installing and coming up with the non-genuine windows bit without even trying to validate it, just strikes me as totally beyond understanding.

That's three entirely different systems on three different hds. The only ghost of an explanation I can come up with is the hds not being directly connected to a sata port. But it seems to me that's a really far stretch.

 

[norm1320]

I've seen this a few times in the last week or so with system which I know have legit windows (including one of my own). I'm starting to suspect that MS might be having some issues with their validation system.

 

[Styxbound]

Validation

That sounds like a pretty good theory, Norm, but it still won't explain the windows 7 thing since I didn't even go on the internet with it; installed it just to look at. I'm sure I've never seen a system rejected outright like that. That's why I figure it has to be something with the machine.

 

[jscx93]

"recovery petition" - you must have 10 signatures from friends to activate windows 7 properly on that computer. Its a social experiment from Hp/compaq



Can't you just change the product key and re-activate? Otherwise i would just suggest OEM disk, I mean the sata ports are already ripped off of the board and all, whats a lost recovery partition going to hurt?

 

[Styxbound]

Validation

Social experiment?_damn, I knew there had to be a good explanation somewhere!

No, I imagine I can just call ms and get either one of the first two deals done. There just seems to be a mystery here and that always kicks me into fanatic mode; something to scream and pull my hair out about is the prime reason I'm in this business. I get more kick out of fixing one freak deal like this than 20 easy ones.

 

[norm1320]

That sounds like a pretty good theory, Norm, but it still won't explain the windows 7 thing since I didn't even go on the internet with it; installed it just to look at. I'm sure I've never seen a system rejected outright like that. That's why I figure it has to be something with the machine.

Ah I see. I've never had it happened on a system that was not online at the time, so I guess I was under the mistaken impression that the WGA test was a check against the MS servers. Oops.

 

[ekrizon]

Does phone activation work?

 

[Styxbound]

Validation

Since I find phone with ms a big pia, thought I'd try one more approach before I did that and it worked, on the sata drive. I already had the key updater on the machine so I went to it just as if I were going to change the key, but just used the coa key. Worked great, have mse installed.

But that still doesn't explain the windows 7 thing. Why a new disk claims it's not genuine.