Cloned OS, now i need to activate windows?

[PCCPPC]

I recently cloned my OS from my HDD to SSD, everything was fine and it boots off of the SSD, but now i need to activate windows again as the watermark is in the bottom right corner?! I have a key but i dont know where it is, is there any way to get the key from the HDD? Im not why it would need to activate again when all ive done is copy over the OS?!?! Please help :s

 

[Colif]

if it was activated on hdd it should reactivate on SSD unless you have both drives in same PC or put SSD in another PC?

i would give it a day and see if it auto activates as it should if its in same PC and all you changed was the drive

if you still use the Email address you registered windows 10 upgrade on, then look in settings/update & security/activation and there should be a contact number there for MS. Call them and tell them what you did and they might reactivate it for you.

 

[USAFRet]

I recently cloned my OS from my HDD to SSD, everything was fine and it boots off of the SSD, but now i need to activate windows again as the watermark is in the bottom right corner?! I have a key but i dont know where it is, is there any way to get the key from the HDD? Im not why it would need to activate again when all ive done is copy over the OS?!?! Please help :s

Done properly, cloning from one drive to another should have no impact on activation status.
Did you do anything else during this process?

 

[Jesse_20]

Windows 10 has an equipment trust check it does at startup. If you change your system more than an "allowable" number of times, you might need to reactivate after the change. Typically a drive by itself would not do that, but if it is the last of a long line of changes, it might be why.

 

[PCCPPC]

if it was activated on hdd it should reactivate on SSD unless you have both drives in same PC or put SSD in another PC?

i would give it a day and see if it auto activates as it should if its in same PC and all you changed was the drive

if you still use the Email address you registered windows 10 upgrade on, then look in settings/update & security/activation and there should be a contact number there for MS. Call them and tell them what you did and they might reactivate it for you.

I have still got the other folders on the origional HDD, i can take pictures if needed? Is there a way to find out the code?

 

[PCCPPC]

I recently cloned my OS from my HDD to SSD, everything was fine and it boots off of the SSD, but now i need to activate windows again as the watermark is in the bottom right corner?! I have a key but i dont know where it is, is there any way to get the key from the HDD? Im not why it would need to activate again when all ive done is copy over the OS?!?! Please help :s

Done properly, cloning from one drive to another should have no impact on activation status.
Did you do anything else during this process?

I used the Easeus, free tool to copy OS to SSD, nothing more nothing less :S

 

[USAFRet]

I used the Easeus, free tool to copy OS to SSD, nothing more nothing less :S

Interesting.
In all my cloning operations, I've never seen it mess up the activation status.
But then...I don't use EaseUS.

 

[Colif]

I guess in theory he should be able to put old hdd in and if its activated do the steps to link licence to email address and then put ssd back in and do the 2nd half of steps. Shouldn't need to though unless you have swapped a lot in PC before now

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change

 

[PCCPPC]

I guess in theory he should be able to put old hdd in and if its activated do the steps to link licence to email address and then put ssd back in and do the 2nd half of steps. Shouldn't need to though unless you have swapped a lot in PC before now

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change

Select the Start button, select Settings > Update & security > Activation > and then select Add an account. You must be signed in as an administrator to add your Microsoft account.

For me, this helped, I follow these instructions and instead of Add an Acount, i troubleshoot, it then asks if i changed my hardware. It then says servers are down at the moment, but it seems to be the solution, thanks!