Workbench pc repeat activations

[citizensmith]

Monday Morning idiot question

I used to have a trustey workhorse xp machine on bench. Sidepanels always off, extended power leads & drive cables always hanging out. It was graet for things like FABs, drive testing and was always being reconfigurred. Figured it was time to retire it but now replacement w7 box is always bleeting about activation when working with users drives. I know this is a "significant" hardware change but its a real drag continually doing the phone thing.
Am I making a noob mistake here or is there an easier way than putting an earlier clone image back on the w7 box or using external usb-sata box?

 

[MobileTechie]

Really?

I've never had that and I use mine in just the same was as you describe.

 

[citizensmith]

^^ Thats' reassuring I guess I must be doing it wrong :facepalm:
Yesterday added added an IDE drive & vista laptop drive. Everything worked fine with no hassle. Jobs done so removed extra bits. Today w7 pro wants to be activated again again .
Previuosly used PE / linux boot disks for this sort of thing so maybe there's a problem with the original instalation

 

[nlinecomputers]

My main system is a Windows 7 unit and it has a BlacX esata dual drive doc that I frequently use for data recovery or drive cloning. Never been prompted to activate. So long as the main drive isn't changed you shouldn't be prompted for that.

 

[DCGPX]

Today w7 pro wants to be activated again again .

Until you get to bottom of it, why not just backup the W7 Activation and reapply rather than mess with phone etc.

I agree with others, somethings amiss as I use mine same way and never asked for activation yet.

 

[Rosco]

Never been prompted to activate. So long as the main drive isn't changed you shouldn't be prompted for that.

This has always been my understanding. I have a windows 7 pro as my bench machine. Could Home Premium trip this up? Always hook up clients drives to it never had to reactivate.

 

[citizensmith]

Thanks DCGPX thats' a great idea. Problem onlly seems to affect the test rig. My office pc is fine with swapping drives. Think its' hammer time

 

[JustInspired]

Never had this problem with my bench machine running Windows 7 Pro. That's had so many drives in it that I have to manually assign drive letters cause they don't get automatically assigned anymore.
But as mentioned above, the boot drive never changes...

Talking about activation on the phone... just managed to complete one in 3 minutes 32 seconds.
My fastest time ever

 

[Martyn]

Never had this problem with my bench machine running Windows 7 Pro. That's had so many drives in it that I have to manually assign drive letters cause they don't get automatically assigned anymore.
But as mentioned above, the boot drive never changes...

Talking about activation on the phone... just managed to complete one in 3 minutes 32 seconds.
My fastest time ever

Same here about drive letter assignments. I can see a competition coming up for the activation

 

[JustInspired]

I can see a competition coming up for the activation

LOL. I am always trying to beat my previous times. "Welcome to Microsoft Product Activation"
I get annoyed when the robot lady can't keep up with me!

 

[DCGPX]

Never had this problem with my bench machine running Windows 7 Pro. That's had so many drives in it that I have to manually assign drive letters cause they don't get automatically assigned anymore.
But as mentioned above, the boot drive never changes...

Talking about activation on the phone... just managed to complete one in 3 minutes 32 seconds.
My fastest time ever

Sidetrack but is noautomount enabled?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MountMgr\NoAutoMount

Quick googleshoo says if value 1 it will no longer assign letters?

Or uninstall USB controller, reboot and the check value then

I've loads in and out and not met unassigned letters yet.

Just a thought!

 

[JustInspired]

Sidetrack but is noautomount enabled?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MountMgr\NoAutoMount

Quick googleshoo says if value 1 it will no longer assign letters?

Or uninstall USB controller, reboot and the check value then

I've loads in and out and not met unassigned letters yet.

Just a thought!

Nothing's changed from the default install and sometimes it will assign a letter and sometimes it won't.
I think I need to scrub non present devices and whatever else I can find to clean it up. Failing that I have a shortcut to disk management handy.

Not surprised as this machine has had probably close to a thousand different drives in it since 2009.

 

[citizensmith]

Embarrased but Resolved

Can we have a :facepalm: icon please?

Did a clean install not from a clone this time. After rebooting showed 3 days to activate ? Online activation failed. Noticed sidebar was showing wrong time and date. Reset both and it activates fine.
The cmos battery was dead. Hate it when I jump right in to fix the complicated fault and miss the "obvious".

Thanks for all the ideas guys. And Gal

 

[nlinecomputers]

 

[brandonkick]

Can we have a :facepalm: icon please?

Did a clean install not from a clone this time. After rebooting showed 3 days to activate ? Online activation failed. Noticed sidebar was showing wrong time and date. Reset both and it activates fine.
The cmos battery was dead. Hate it when I jump right in to fix the complicated fault and miss the "obvious".

Thanks for all the ideas guys. And Gal

Espeically when that's already been mentioned by alice !

 

[citizensmith]

Espeically when that's already been mentioned by alice !

thats harsh as I did say thanks. Who knows, he may be a techie after all