Recent content by Collected1

Yes I went with the image solution too. I've got it saved on a spare drive and will need to just call upon it whenever I want to reinstall. If it ever stops working or it gets too annoying I'll just buy a license from the MS store. Frustratingly I never did get a call back from them. Thanks...

Same app. I used the backup Windows option top left… it’s second in the list there I believe. Saved the backup file to an SSD then fired up the same app on my bad drive, selected restore, locate the file and accept all the defaults. It boots into a cut down version of Windows and does the rest...

Funny you should ask @BamaInArk - I performed a clean install on both SSD's without my MS account details earlier this evening to see what happened. This is actually how I normally install Windows generally since the Windows 10 days of needing to intercept all the garbage it would throw at you...

Me again! As an experiment I restored my old activated SSD to the new SSD and dropped the active license with slmgr /upk to see if it would allow re-activation via "Troubleshooting" and sure enough, it immediately did. I tried this a few times just to confirm it wasn't a one off and rebooted a...

It says "Windows is activated with a digital licence linked to your Microsoft account". The command returns "Windows (R), Core edition: The machine is permanently activated." On the bad SSD I get: "Windows (R), Core edition: Windows is in Notification mode".

I understand... it's annoying me too. My years of IT experience aren't letting me drop it. I'm 95% sure something on the MS side of the conversation is to blame and the other 5% is the chance I'm doing something really, really dumb. I appreciate your efforts to help me but don't feel you have to...

I always select that I don't have a product key and then provide my Microsoft login details during the installation.

hsehestedt & NavyLCDR: See below. I've attached two sets of screenshots from the SSDs after a full clean reinstall. Let me know if anything jumps out at you as being a cause for concern. I can't spot anything personally but perhaps someone else can. Thank you again for the responses.

I've humoured myself with a little experiment this evening. Four SSD drives (2 x NVMe and 2 x SATA). Four identical W11 installations using the same USB stick, same MS account details and same PC. Only one activated... and you guessed it, it's the SSD I'm trying to replace that I've been using...

Thank you for the responses so far. This forum really is extremely helpful in that regard and I appreciate it. I'm starting to wonder if I've fallen foul of the recent tightening up of activation rules. My original key dates back to a Windows 7 OEM System Builders copy I bought from New Egg...

Yes that's what I discovered too but I'm sure I'm installing Windows 11 Home on both SSDs. And I can verify this on the MS website in the Devices List. Both are set to the same version of Windows 11. I'm baffled at this point. I think I'll try to contact MS as a final option.

Thanks for the response. Steps 1 to 5 aren't resolving the issue for me. I've never seen my current SSD installation in the list at Step 4, just my previous SSD installation. Ticking that doesn't result in a successful activation. And my Activation screen has no "Activate Windows Now" section...

Thank you for the response and suggestion. The restore from the clone onto my new SSD stated it was activated which looked promising. That's the first time I've seen Windows state it's activated on that drive. So I went ahead and performed a clean install and.... I'm back to unable to activate...

I wonder if anyone can offer some suggestions on what may be causing the following issue. I purchased a new SSD (NVME M2) at the weekend and installed it into my motherboard before performing a fresh install of Windows 11 Home from a newly created USB stick. I've a Digital License and logged in...