Strangest thing (IDE > SATA)

Stangest thing, I istall a SATA hard drive along with current OS so that the SATA controller is installed. I make a backup and flash it to the SATA. SATA as only drive, set to boot, I get a little different font on my startup screen and a hang until it says this copy of "Windows needs to be activated". Now what is going on here? I assume that going from IDE to SATA is possible and I can't for the life of me figure out what is going on other than Acronis not making an EXACT copy of my system part.

any ideas?

thanks
Dr. C

 

You changed from an IDE to another drive (SATA)? ON startup , Win checks the hardware IDs of various hardware components and checks against a list it has stored. It uses the hardware numbers to generate the key that MS uses to generate the activation code. If enough changes occur within a certain amount of time, then reactiviation is required. Even if you clone a disk, if you change the hardware, the change will be detected on win startup.

The point is to stop folks from massively (illegally) reinstalling the software while not hurting individuals who merely use it on their own PCs that might change hardware components form time to time.

Activation is pita.

sh

 

You changed from an IDE to another drive (SATA)? ON startup , Win checks the hardware IDs of various hardware components and checks against a list it has stored. It uses the hardware numbers to generate the key that MS uses to generate the activation code. If enough changes occur within a certain amount of time, then reactiviation is required. Even if you clone a disk, if you change the hardware, the change will be detected on win startup.

The point is to stop folks from massively (illegally) reinstalling the software while not hurting individuals who merely use it on their own PCs that might change hardware components form time to time.

Activation is pita.

sh

 

While just adding/removing one hard drive should not kick off a 'Windows needs activation' message just reactivate.

 

That's what I figured but I was sure it would work since this current image had actually come from a RAID array. But I do remember the mention of a certain limit to changes...<snip> The workaround is to shut down and make the image right after win installs new hardware (SATA), don't reboot.

Dr. C

edited to remove political comments - Detox

 

Hello doctorcilantro,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that we do not guarantee the successful transferring of your operating system to a different hardware which SATA hard in comparison with IDE hard drive apparently is.

Please also note that you should prepare your Windows for transferring using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (sysprep) as it is described in this FAQ article.

We also recommend you to unplug one of the hard drives prior to booting into Windows, since keeping two absolutely identical hard drives connected might cause different boot or drive letter assignment problems.

You can also find this article interesting.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov