cf-19 recovery

Thanks .....
But I am still puzzled where the P/O got the Panasonic Win 7 COA that is stuck on the bottom.

Cheers
Dave
South Oz

 

Your CF-19 Mk3 is like mine, it was most likely factory installed with windows xp, but has a windows 7 COA on it from the factory. The picture you put on there is from the factory.

 

Still a tad puzzled that Panasonic could install XP Pro with a fitted Win7 COA. What XP Pro key did they use to OEM install the product?
It is my understanding that Microsoft licensing insists that the installed software product key matches that shown on the COA label.
This machine has a "genuine" Win7 product key installed, it just doesn't match the label!

It seems that some Win7 models were shipped with a "downgrade to XP Pro" option. Maybe this was one of these.

Cheers
Dave
South Oz

 

Trying to understand Microsoft or Panasonic is like trying to understand a woman.. Good luck with that.

 

Hi all ..... many thanks for the ongoing help and advice. Very much appreciated.
Realised the easy route was a recovery disk.
I grabbed a genuine recovery disk here .... he has more ....
Product Recovery DVD FOR Panasonic Toughbook CF 19 Series WIN 7 PRO | eBay
Designated MK3-7PM32

I also took the opportunity to replace the 160GB Hitachi 5400 rpm HDD with a 230GB Intel SSD.
Recovery went flawlessly, everything seems to work and I didn't need to backup any data since I still have the original HDD.

Just have to reinstall all the stuff I REALLY need and keep away from all the baggage I had collected over the last 12 months!

Last task will be to change the installed product key to that on the COA label.

Again, many thanks,

Cheers
Dave
South Oz

 

It's better not to deploy recovery images, made for HDD, onto SSD. Or, at least, install and run Paragon Alignment tool.

 

This article tells you how to tweak Windows to work properly with a SSD....And it's FREE.

How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling Windows

Cut and pasted text from that page.

Proper SSD Maintenance

We've covered proper SSD maintenance before, so I won't go too deeply into it here. In order to have Windows optimize itself for your new SSD, you may need to re-run the Windows Experience Index. Hit the Start menu and type in "Windows Experience", and hit the "Check the Windows Experience Index" option. Click "Re-Run the Assessment" and it should turn off defragmentation and turn on TRIM.
How to Maximize the Life of Your SSD

An SSD drive is a worthwhile investment, but like any storage device, it can fail. In fact, failing …Read more

How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling WindowsExpand

To double check that it all went as expected, head to your Start menu and type "defrag" in the search box. Click on "Disk Defragmenter". Click on "Configure Schedule" and hit "Select Disks". If all went well, Windows will realize it's on an SSD and your SSD won't even be an option in this menu (if you're on Windows 8, it will show up in the list as an SSD instead, and defragmentation will be disabled).

Lastly, we'll want to make sure TRIM is turned on, which keeps your drive from slowing down over time. Open up a Command Prompt and type in:
fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

It will either give you a 0 or a 1 as a result. If you get a zero, that means TRIM is enabled. If you get a 1, make sure you have a TRIM-compatible SSD—you may have to Google your SSD's model number to find out.

The process seems very complicated, but if you follow the steps exactly, the whole migration should go off without a hitch. You'll have a super fast-booting machine, programs will launch almost instantaneously, and you'll still have all your personal files easily accessible on another drive.

 

So you are saying after you ran the recovery disk the product keys are different ??

 

That's common for them not to match when you use a recovery disk. The recovery disk has one serial that is authorized to be used on every unit it is installed on...As long as you have a legit COA on the bottom.....
Can you imagine what would be involved in a recovery disk that had a different COA serial number for every unit it was installed on?

 

I find this strange because this was never this way before. On my XP Pro Toughbooks I can run "Product Key Finder" and it will give me the COA and its the same on the bottom but on my W7 Toughbooks they bring up a different COA product key ?? I thought the key was stored in the BIOS or EPROM ??

Product Key Finder - Free download and software reviews - CNET Download.com

 

For Vista up the Product key for activation is stored in the bios, it's univeral across the board for one brand, each brand has there own speical key.

The COA number on the bottom is for when you don't have the "right" disk. It seemed my Mk3 was a little different as it didn't auto activate. Maybe it had to do with having xp installed from the factory but with a 7 coa?

 

I guess you are wrong. Not Vista, but Windows 8 up
Or it's not a product key, but a manufacturer's code or something like that.

 

That's what a I was trying to say.......You explained it better than me....

The activation thing makes sense.
If the model was shipped with Vista or Win7, and you buy a Vista unit but the Win7 recovery disk will install. It needs to be manually activated because the key in the BIOS is a Vista key not a Win7 key. I guess that's the SLIC thing??

 

SLIC table info

Definition

The term "SLIC" is short for software licensing description table. The SLIC table is a portion of system BIOS that is dedicated to containing operating system license activation information. SLIC tables are added to BIOS by large computer manufacturers to expedite the process of licensing operating system software on new computers. The process of activating an operating system with information preloaded into SLIC is called OEM activation.

Contents

Prior to activation, a BIOS SLIC table contains information that is referred to by Microsoft as the OEMTableID. The data includes a string of characters called a SLIC key that identifies the computer as eligible for OEM activation. Microsoft licenses a different public SLIC key to each computer manufacturer. A single computer manufacturer's SLIC key may vary based on the version of the operating system preloaded on the computer. Providing different SLIC keys for different manufacturers and different operating system versions ensures that a given Windows operating system product key can only unlock a single model of computer.

License Activation

When you first activate your operating system on a new computer with SLIC BIOS, you must type in a Microsoft Windows product key. Once you input the characters, your computer compares the specified product key with the SLIC public key that is contained in the SLIC table. If the two keys match, then your operating system license is activated and you can use your computer. If the product key does not match the key in the SLIC table, then activation fails.



Read more : What Is a SLIC BIOS Entry? | eHow