I had the chronology wrong the clones were created before the battery change.

Let's review; we started out fixing the Sea Monkey problem and resolved it by
downloading from the Admin Account, we also fixed the boot menu problem
on the 780 then we addressed the backspace key problem and we spent allot
of time and effort and checked everything and still could not find why it's not
working. We then agreed to move to cloning where it was going along fine with
no problems on the 780 #1, and #2 then started #3 on the 8500. All went well, I
had rebooted to show the desktop and it was logging off when I received the not
genuine message. This came totally out of the blue. We checked and it's licensed
and then changed the battery and its not been the same since.

Obviously #3 did connect at the time otherwise I couldn't of cloned it but whatever
the battery did it's affected every drive I connected to it afterwards as you said.
That's why #3 wouldn't connect even though I had just taken it out of the 8500 and
why the WS external hd did connect because it was created long before the battery
change. That's also why the Patriot Key works because it isn't tainted.

So #3 and #4 needs some work so that the 8500 recognizes them. I can go into the
DOS screen and enter the commands but can I safely logoff?

I see what you're talking about now with the Active. Hmmm strange,..on the 8500 it's
in the Recovery partition and on the external Western Digital hd in I: partition. How
weird? I hadn't noticed that before.

The bottom item is the WD external hd with the Mrimgs for the 8500 so we don't want
to touch it! I was just showing you that it connects just as the Patriot Key does.

So do you want me to put #3 or #4 and enter the commands in DOS? Remember #3
is the only backup hd I have for the 8500 and #4 has no OS. So which do choose.

If I bought new hd's would they work since they haven't been tainted and we could start
fresh? That might be a better option.

Robert