Help with laptop hard drive cloning/imaging

[john70t]

The old laptop computer has gotten sluggish so:
I ran a memory test which said it was fine.
Also ran checkdisk which said sectors were unreadable and it would freeze at about 10% (not the exact same place) several times in a row and stay frozen for hours.
Did a Spybot and Malwarebytes and MSSE scan when firefox started flashing and becoming nonfunctional but no viruses were found.
Some other strange stuff happened but I'm going to go with a bad HD for now.

So a nice new 1TB hard and a USB 2.0 to SATA Adapter to attach it was obtained after a 2 hour drive.
I just needed to run some cloning software...swap the new drive in...and I'd be on my merry way...so I thought.

AOMEI seemed to have an easy interface but there was a problem: The new USB-attached-drive was not recognized in "my computer" so it could't be designated as the destination drive.
This happened in both Windows System Imaging and AOMEI software.
Win7 knew it was a hard drive and even memory sticks showed up in "my computer".
It was recognized under "control panel/hardware" and "sound/devices and printers" only as a "generic external USB storage device" and working properly.
Updating the device driver did not turn it recognized either.
I then tried different software.
Clonezilla was too complex, ShadowCopy looked limited.
Finally, MiniTool Partition Wizard saw the new drive and did the disk imaging copy.
I hope.

I installed the new hard drive, but Microsoft wants the system disk to check if it is genuine.
(A Windows 7 installation DVD was not provided with the original purchase and would have prevented this problem.)

No joy from Microsoft..
Despite pushing all the Windows Updates which seem to be ok with my "inauthentic copy".
Now they want me to download another 220mb update and I couldn't get rid of the notification popup. geesh.

I tried every copy of the original "Repair Disk" "PC Recovery Disk" and "System Image Restore" disks I'd burned back in 2014.
None of them worked. They should have.

Then I swapped in the old drive again and tried to burn a fresh system backup disk to use for validation.
Getting error messages:
System Image failng to burn to DVD. Only 12MB written and then error.
0x8007041D "Taking too long"
0x850750002 "cant find the fie specified"
0xC003005 "The backup application could not start due to an internal error."
0x80070002 "more information" when checking why burning DVD failed "The system cannot find the file specified"
This hard drive is failing.

I've spent about 12 hours thus far and am getting fast at swapping the HDDs.
On this HP15, the keyboard and top have to be removed in a tricky order and those tiny plastic wedges for the ribbon cables are wearing out.
After the 4th swap I'm getting tired.

Microsoft said they would only require the re-validation process only if there was a hard drive + memory change.
The original HP and Microsoft paperwork was probably tossed by my ex when she moved. Can't find it anywhere.
I just spent $150 and need to get this authenticated and working.
Do I just call Microsoft without any paperwork?

What do I do now?

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by john70t

Do I just call Microsoft without any paperwork?

If it was the OEM OS, the product (authentication) key should be on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop, or sometimes in the battery bay. If not, you can typically call the manufacturer (HP?) with the laptop's SN and get a replacement key.

Or, you can download a "key finder" program to locate it in the registry (it is encrypted, so a manual registry search is probably futile). This seems to be a popular one: https://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/

If that's not what you meant by "paperwork" then, sorry...and free bump.

[john70t]

That is awesome. Will do.
The computer might have been originally bought in her name but really can't remember at this point.

The one thing I am proud of is stopping and watching a video when it didn't come apart, instead of prying harder and snapping the MB in half or chucking it out the window. I can be a 'blunt instrument' sometimes.

[stomachmonkey]

Beyond the licensing issue that old hard drive,as you know, is toast and part of the problem is it's already too corrupt to read / write reliably.

Other than trying to get the license key, I would NOT run / use it until you get the license sorted.