Ok guys i am on the brink of desperation regarding this, Ill try to be as descriptive as i can be, I got myself an ASUS running windows 8, 2 days ago i bought a 1TB hdd and replaced the original 500gb hdd. I proceeded to partition my drive and install my OSs (A few partitions with some linux distros i need for everyday usage and university and one partition with windows 8) 1 of the partitions i installed windows 8 i used some msdn iso I had lying around. I did a bit of research and found how to extract the OEM image from the recovery partition on the original 500gb hdd, so I went ahead and using the recovery tool on windows 8 and with the option "copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive" and it did copy everything, i had a few install.swm files in the sources folder, so everything seemed to work. I proceeded to install the OEM image on the windows 8 partition i had before, going throught the reboot pressing shift to access the recovery and saying i wanted to format the windows 8 partition and it took like 1 hour or 1:30h but it finished, once i was greeted by the windows 8 start screen i had all the programs that came from factory, but to my surprise as soon as i went to the desktop i saw the watermark saying windows 8 build 9200, I was like what is going on, this is the OEM image, that came with the pc, why didn't it activate?? i went to system settings pcinfo to try and activate and had the following message: Windows isn't activated Activate with a new key buy a new key a bit further down: Activation details Error code 0xC004C003 the activation server determined that the product key has been blocked... WHY THE HELL? why is my key blocked, its an OEM key, there must be something wrong here... I open my trusty command line and typed: slmgr.vbs -dli and this window came up: Name: Windows (R), core edition Description: Windows(R) Operating system, RETAIL channel License status: Notification Notification Reason: 0xC004F009(grace time expired) Now what the hell, this is an OEM image from my own laptop and the channel is set to RETAIL? it should be OEM_DM not retail right? that is probably why my key isn't working, and i can't activate. What can I do to fix this? Please guys help me out, I have no where else to turn too...
hey Tito thanks a lot for the post, I read the stickies before posting this thread, but I don't think it applies to me, or I can't understand it... Ill try to reply to your points: isn't the MSDM table in the original hdd? I am not using that hdd anymore, it is already gone, as I said in my post I am using a 1tb hdd that i bought 2/3 days ago. The thing is again the activation key is there it just says it is blacklisted and can't be activated by the server... Or am I just confusing the MSDM table key with the activation key? what do you mean restore it manually? I use the windows Recovery tool from windows 8 to copy the OEM image to another hdd and then i used that image on the hdd to restore it on the new hdd is that what you mean manually? Well because i wanted to restore a factory like partition, and then use the store to update to windows 8.1 There must be something i am not understanding, can you please explain me the stuff a little better, I must be missing something. Again thank you for the time, and for helping out. EDIT1 Ok Tito I went ahead and got OEM_DM KEY with a tool you linked in your post, I used the 1tb hdd (As I don't have the 500gb original hdd) I did get the key, now I am debating, is this the right key? and if it is how and where do I use it? EDIT2 Ok I just realized that the MSDM has nothing to do with the HDD it is actually related with the ACPI, so having another disk doesn't make a difference, but again, I was able to extract the OEM_DM key with the links that were on your thread, now what I do with it? EDIT3 YEAH I AM AN IDIOT xD I just had to paste the key, I thought the OEM_DM key was something different from the Activation key, but I pasted the key and after a minute it activated, thanks a lot for the help Tito.