Win7 dual boot:upgrade/validate

[Damo Gets]

Unfortunately I ended up with an illegitimate copy of Windows 7 when I built
my new machine. It didn't seem to have any problems for the first few weeks
of usage, but now that I've come back from vacation and turned the machine on
again, it's complaining about not passing windows validation and how my
security center and all is going to get shut down.

This isn't really such a problem for me due to the fact that I'm enrolled in a
college right now so I can pick up a cheap student edition, if I need to.
What worries me is my configuration.

I have two drives in the computer, one that has Windows 7 at the beginning of
the partition and then assorted linux partitions after it. The second drive
is a giant one formatted as NTFS that I can mount in both operating systems in
order to access media and other stuff that I want to share between OSes.

I'm really worried because of how complicated the install was to make these
two OSes play nicely with each other. I do NOT want to lose the contents of
either operating system, if at all possible. Backing up my several terrabytes
of information is not possible right now and I know I'll miss things if I try
without just mirroring at a later date when I have more space.

Can anybody give me some tips on this kind of setup that may be helpful for
getting my Win7 information 'legitimized' again? I used the setup listed at
http://www.lifehacker.com/ for dual-booting the 2 OSes, if that helps at all.

Any help is much appreciated in advance!
-Damon Getsman
http://bismaninfo.hopto.org/

 

[Char Jackson]

Unfortunately I ended up with an illegitimate copy of Windows 7 when I built
my new machine. It didn't seem to have any problems for the first few weeks
of usage, but now that I've come back from vacation and turned the machine on
again, it's complaining about not passing windows validation and how my
security center and all is going to get shut down.

This isn't really such a problem for me due to the fact that I'm enrolled in a
college right now so I can pick up a cheap student edition, if I need to.
What worries me is my configuration.

I'm really worried because of how complicated the install was to make these
two OSes play nicely with each other. I do NOT want to lose the contents of
either operating system, if at all possible.

I'll toss out a rather unusual option for two reasons:
1. Your system is already illegitimate. It can't get any more
illegitimate than it is.
2. Your configuration seems to be extremely fragile. One wrong move
and your data is at extreme risk.

So...you might take a two-pronged approach. First, buy yourself a
legitimate copy of Windows 7. Put it aside for a time when your system
can stand to be worked on without endangering your data. Second, use a
little utility called RemoveWAT to bypass the validation and make the
system appear to be genuine and legitimate. Although RemoveWAT is
itself a semi-permanent solution, I don't advocate it as such. It
should be treated as a temporary solution until you can get your data
backed up.

 

[Damo Gets]

2. Your configuration seems to be extremely fragile. One wrong move
and your data is at extreme risk.

So...you might take a two-pronged approach. First, buy yourself a
legitimate copy of Windows 7. Put it aside for a time when your system
can stand to be worked on without endangering your data. Second, use a
little utility called RemoveWAT to bypass the validation and make the
system appear to be genuine and legitimate. Although RemoveWAT is

I'll give these methods a shot. Pretty soon here I should have a nice 4TB
RAID array to backup everything to without having to worry so much, but yeah,
I really don't want to risk losing everything including source code
repositories so close to the beginning of the spring semester. Thanks for the
information, I'll give RemoveWAT a try for now and definitely pick up one of
those discount 'doze 7 copies from the student bookstore at school.

Thnx again
-Damon Getsman
http://bismaninfo.hopto.org/

 

[R. C. White]

?Hi, Damon.

Pretty soon here I should have a nice 4TB RAID array to backup everything
to without having to worry so much, but yeah, I really don't want to risk
losing everything including source code repositories.

Just be sure you have the right kind of RAID! As you may not know, RAID 1
(mirror) increases safety of your data, but doubles the storage cost. RAID
0 (stripes) is much faster, but doubles the risk of losing everything.
:>( Other RAID variations...vary.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-9/30/10)
Windows Live Mail Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3504.1109) in Win7 Ultimate x64
SP1 RC


"Damo Gets" wrote in message

2. Your configuration seems to be extremely fragile. One wrong move
and your data is at extreme risk.

So...you might take a two-pronged approach. First, buy yourself a
legitimate copy of Windows 7. Put it aside for a time when your system
can stand to be worked on without endangering your data. Second, use a
little utility called RemoveWAT to bypass the validation and make the
system appear to be genuine and legitimate. Although RemoveWAT is

I'll give these methods a shot. Pretty soon here I should have a nice 4TB
RAID array to backup everything to without having to worry so much, but
yeah,
I really don't want to risk losing everything including source code
repositories so close to the beginning of the spring semester. Thanks for
the
information, I'll give RemoveWAT a try for now and definitely pick up one of
those discount 'doze 7 copies from the student bookstore at school.

Thnx again
-Damon Getsman