I tried swapping laptop hard drives

[serotemizci]

My beloved Packard Bell Easynote TJ65's hard drive finally gave up. I had a old Dell laptop laying around which belonged to my older brother in the past so i decided to get his hard drive and put it in mine. It worked and the computer did actually boot but there's a problem. Windows says that the OS is not activated(i'm %100 sure that it was actually activated while inside the Dell laptop) and tells me to contact Dell tech service. How can i resolve this issue?

 

[Barty1884]

The OS installed on the Dell HDD is for the Dell laptop and license key.

Do you have a license key on the Packard laptop? On the bottom potentially?

If so, you could reinstall the OS the Packard laptop has a key for, and activate it by entering the key.

The Dell OS/license is OEM, and cannot be transferred.

 

[jsmithepa]

U may actually find that not everything works. His OS was installed with HIS HARDWARE, Windows is not smart enough to to switch to the new hardware on-the-fly.

Probably want to use the HD as bared and restore your own OS from backup or CD.

 

[serotemizci]

The OS installed on the Dell HDD is for the Dell laptop and license key.

Do you have a license key on the Packard laptop? On the bottom potentially?

If so, you could reinstall the OS the Packard laptop has a key for, and activate it by entering the key.

The Dell OS/license is OEM, and cannot be transferred.

Sadly because of the fact that my computer is incredibly old all the stickers are torn down. I might be wrong but i had heard that you can find your windows key in the bios settings which is something i had actually done while wiping my now dead hard drive but right now i don't remember how to do that or if it's actually a thing at all.

 

[Barty1884]

Some key recovery programs exist, but pre-Windows 8 (IIRC), you'd recover from the HDD, not the BIOS.

 

[jsmithepa]

U are S.O.L. then. Doubt u can purchase another license from PB, have to buy from Microsoft, and the installation from a Microsoft License will be trickier than normal since you have to reload all of PB's specific drivers, IF you still have the CD or available at PB's website.

 

[USAFRet]

My beloved Packard Bell Easynote TJ65's hard drive finally gave up. I had a old Dell laptop laying around which belonged to my older brother in the past so i decided to get his hard drive and put it in mine. It worked and the computer did actually boot but there's a problem. Windows says that the OS is not activated(i'm %100 sure that it was actually activated while inside the Dell laptop) and tells me to contact Dell tech service. How can i resolve this issue?

That is exactly what will happen.
The license belongs to the system, not to the hard drive.
The PB license will become unactivated when it sees new hardware. Like the Dell.

And I'm surprised it actually booted up. That is very much of a "maybe" condition.
You'll probably find other issues later.