[RESOLVED] Windows fails to accept product keys - XP, Vista and 7(!)

I encountered a problem while re-partitioning my computer the other day, shortly after installing Windows 7, and now I'm unable to reinstall *any* version of Windows on any of the three hard drives in my computer.

When I try to install from scratch - which I'm only doing because it's proved impossible to reinstall over the top of existing installations - using the Windows installation disks, I'm informed that "Your product key cannot be validated. Review your product key and make sure that you have entered it correctly."

That specific wording is from the Vista installation routine, but a similar formulation comes up in all three versions I have - XP, Vista and 7.

I know that the product keys are in fact correct - I've used them before on the same computer - and all of these versions of Windows are authentic, the original disks and purchased through officially approved channels.

Looking up this issue on the web, none of the scenarios mentioned appear to apply. One suggested for Vista is that the installation disk is pre-service pack 1 and the product key was issued after that, but that can't be the cause here as the same thing is happening in XP and 7 too.

Looking in the BIOS, everything appears to be normal. And looking at the disks using a boot CD for the two partioning programs I have - TeraByte BootIt NG and Acronis Disk Director 10 - nothing appears to be out of the ordinary. All three internal disks are functioning and their booting order in the BIOS is the same as I had them set up originally.

I wonder if the network adaptor isn't working so windows can't connect to the outside world.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think that can be a factor here as the product key validation process always takes place at a stage before Windows has been configured to go online anyway. I've done this numerous times before and the operating system gets set up to connect to the outside world well after this point.

Whatever Windows uses to reference the validity of product keys, it isn't an online source. That part comes when Windows is activated, which can be done via the internet or with a phone call. In Vista and 7, validating the product key enables Windows to be used for 30 days without requiring activation. In XP, the product key alone should be sufficient, as that operating system was designed without the assumption that everyone would be using it online.

Were there any problems or errors during installation? I'm wondering if this could be either faulty RAM, or a problem with the Arithmetic Logic Unit of the CPU.

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Originally Posted by SuperSparks

Were there any problems or errors during installation? I'm wondering if this could be either faulty RAM, or a problem with the Arithmetic Logic Unit of the CPU.

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The computer appears to work okay when I'm using it with the CD-boot disks from Acronis Disk Director or TeraByte BootIt NG.

The problem initially arose after I'd undertaken a fairly routine re-partitioning job, simply adjusting the size of one partition relative to another.

After that, none of the three operating systems would boot.

There seemed to be an issue with the boot files, one problem mentioned when trying to run an OS repair using Windows installation disks being that the HAL.dll file was either missing or corrupted.

I figured that I could probably get things working again by deleting the operating systems altogether and reinstalling at least one of them, which I could then use to access various data backups I'd made externally.

I did that expecting to have no bother doing a clean install - which I've done many times before - but I haven't been able to achieve that.

It sounds to me like you've developed a hardware fault. Try testing the RAM, using MemTest86 and Windows Memory Diagnostic. Download UBCD and burn it to CD, it has all the memory testing utilities on it plus many more useful tools besides:

Ultimate Boot CD

Yes, it would be typical to get a hardware failure simultaneously with undertaking some other operation, which makes it look like it's the operation that caused the problem.

I'll check out the Ultimate Boot CD and see what it tells me.

In the end I have managed to resolve this issue but I'm still not sure what exactly it was that caused the problem.

The product keys I'd been entering were correct but I got numerous further rejections of keys from both XP and Vista after I posted my query here before I got one to take.

The installation operation finally worked only after I completely wiped all content from the first hard drive (HD0) and then repartitioned and formatted it from scratch.

I had already deleted the partitions on this drive without it making any difference so I can only imagine that something problematic was erased this time round that had failed to be erased the first few times I tried - presumably related to the booting side of things.

I'm using BootIT NG for its booting functions. I don't use the boot manager in Acronis Disk Director as I've found it to be somewhat temperamental.

But thanks for the replies and advice.

Yes, I would run the hdd diagnostics on that drive, if it pasted, DBAN it, which is on the Ultimate Boot CD too.
Then start from scratch.

Probably the route you will need to end up doing. :(

I tried the Ultimate Boot CD and, whilst it looked like it had a lot of useful tools for some functions, I couldn't see any hard drive-related tools that catered for the NTFS format, which is the one used by Windows Vista and 7.

The tools provided appeared to pre-date that format's existence.

Tutorial
http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1044121.htm