As stated in the title, I Used Norton Ghost 15 to copy to new SSD for Windows 7 got blue screen saying Windows not Genuine.
I did have both partitions copyed, the hidden 100mb partition and the C drive, but the drive letters were wrong, the hidden 100mb partition got the C drive letter and the C drive got a drive letter of K.
How I solved it:
Boot into safe mode, you get a black screen, hit ctrl-alt-delete and you get task manager. Run regedit as an admistratior.. go into
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices. Scroll down to \DosDevices\C: and you will see all your mounted drive letters starting with \DosDevices\C:, \DosDevices\D:, \DosDevices\E: etc. You cannot edit the value, but you can delete them.
Highlight all of them and delete them. You can export them to a registry file before you delete if you are not comfortable which can be restored, but not necessary though. Then reboot windows 7. It well correctly regenerate drive letters for most drives, including the all important C drive.
Windows 7 will reboot with a black windows is not genuine screen, but will then go to your welcome screen and your desktop.
You can change any incorrect drive letters at this point using Windows disk management. One more caveat, if you get a missing bootmgr screen you can use system repair from your windows 7 cd to correct that. I hope this helps people. I would also suggest deleting the drive letter which will be assigned to the 100 mb hidden partition which you can do in disk management.
It sounds like you formatted the SSD and let it take a drive letter before you did the copy or booted with the old drive connected for the 1st boot off the SSD. Most important thing to remember about cloning a drive is to not let it take a drive letter before booting by itself. This can also get hosed up if you boot the PC with the old drive conected the first time it is boot off of the SSD or cloned drive. You could have also deleted the mounted devices registry key drom the SRD.
Yeah.what happened was I first did a Norton ghost copy to a new ssd without realizing about the 100 mb hidden partition, then it would not boot unless I used the new drive on a USB adapter and kept the old drive in the computer. Then I got a another new SSD, installed windows 7 fresh into the new ssd to create the 100mb partition, then used ghost to copy over the C drive.got "Windows is not genuine blue screen. I then booted into safe mode, used explorer under administrative privileges and noticed the hidden drive took on letter C and the C drive became the D drive. That is when I did some research and wound up deleting the mounted drives in safe mode using regedit with administrative privileges and solved the problem.
You could delete the Mounted Devices key, then use BCDBOOT from the command prompt to build the boot files on the SSD. Look at THIS POST about halfway down. Note that if you have a 64-bit OS, you need a 64-bit recovery environment. or execute the command from the Windows DVD instaed of the C: drive.
In other words the command would be...
X:\Windows\System32\BCDBOOT C:\Windows
This is assuming the SSD was assigned the letter C in Windows PE. Note that the SSD must be the active partition. I would disconect all other drives to do this.
At last, a SOLUTION that works!!!! This works for an HDD as well. I had to upgrade my hard drive due to capacity issues. I installed a Western Digital 500GB hard drive in my system and Ghosted my C: Drive to it. All worked well except when the system rebooted to a blue screen telling me that my copy of windows was not genuine. I tried everything to get the system to reconize the new drive to no avail. Then I found Lblock's solution for his SSD and thought I would give it a try. I did not have a hidden partition on my old drive to contend with so that was not an issue.
I followed Lblock's advise and my system came up and running with it's new hard drive as the C: drive.
"Boot into safe mode, you get a black screen, hit ctrl-alt-delete and you get task manager. Run regedit as an admistratior.. go into Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices. Scroll down to \DosDevices\C: and you will see all your mounted drive letters starting with \DosDevices\C:, \DosDevices\D:, \DosDevices\E: etc. Highlight all of them and delete them. Then reboot windows 7. It well correctly regenerate drive letters for most drives, including the all important C drive."
WHAT A RELIEF!!!!
Thanks man, I owe you one!!!! I was starting to run out of hair to pull.
Not obeying the cloning rules produces the drive letter issue. It isn't Ghost's fault. To put everything in the one thread, here are fixes I've posted in the past....
Using BIBM
your BootIt CD boots to the Work with Partitions window in the Drives field, make sure it is 0 - BIOS HD click the "View MBR" button. click the "Clear Sig" button. Then click OK on the Notice click the "Apply" button. click the "View MBR" button again and confirm the number in the left bottom corner is 0x00000000 click Cancel click Close on the "Work with Partitions" window
TBOSDT OPEN FS 1: 1 0x01 OPEN REG 2 1:WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM OPEN KEY 3 "" 2 LIST KEYS 3 DEL KEY 3 MountedDevices LIST KEYS 3 CLOSE KEY 3 CLOSE REG 2 CLOSE FS 1: EXIT
From Safe Mode
Boot into Safe Mode Press Ctrl+Alt+Del when you see "Preparing your Desktop" Click Start Task Manager Applications tab, New task Type "regedit" (without the "") and put a tick in Create this task with administrative privileges. OK Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices Select all values in the right hand pane and press Delete on the keyboard Yes Close Registry Editor and Windows Task Manager Press Ctrl+Alt+Del Click Shutdown Power on and boot into Win7
From a Win7 disk
Boot from the Win7 disk At the "Install Windows" screen press SHIFT F10 to get a command window Type "regedit" (without the "") and press Enter Click to Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Click File, Load Hive Click the drop down arrow in "Look in" Browse to C:\Windows\System32\config Select SYSTEM and click Open In Key Name type "letter" OK Click the + next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE in the left pane Click the + next to "letter" in the left pane Select MountedDevices in the "letter" group Select all values in the right hand pane and press Delete on the keyboard Yes Select "letter" in the left hand pane Click File, Unload Hive Yes Close Registry Editor and the Command Window Close the "Install Windows" screen Yes Remove the Win7 disk and boot into Win7 which will assign drive letters.
For a non C: drive OS (deleting MountedDevices will not work)
Works for a non C: drive OS that fails to load Boot into Safe Mode (doesn't work from main installed Win7) Press Ctrl+Alt+Del when you see "Preparing your Desktop" Click Start Task Manager Applications tab, New task Type "cmd" (without the "") and put a tick in Create this task with administrative privileges. OK You will see your incorrect drive letter. eg H:\Windows\system 32 Type "regedit" (without the "") and press Enter OK Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices In the right hand pane select "\DosDevices\H:" (or whatever incorrect drive letter you have noted) Right-click \DosDevices\H: and then click Rename Rename it to \DosDevices\E: (basically change H to E, assuming your OS should have been E:) Close Registry Editor, the Command Window and Windows Task Manager Press Ctrl+Alt+Del Click Shutdown Power on and boot into Win7
Using setwindl.tbs script
Directly change the drive letter to C: or whatever letter it should be.