O.T. Missing Folder/files

I'm on the 780 at the moment,

I made a System Restore point on the 8500 and did a successful
Mrimg on the 780. I then checked Disk Management to make sure
the HD partition was OK and didn't need resizing. Afterwards I
decided to check #1 and #2 hd partitions but they would not connect
to the 780.

https://postimg.cc/DS1NxtV3
https://postimg.cc/0rq0fbkj
https://postimg.cc/4Yn6dc5L

I thought these were OK and I booted them after cloning. So do I need
to erase the hd's and start over? Do we need to enable the autoplay?
This is so weird. First we had problems with the 780 boot menu and
then all the problems with the 8500 and now this on the 780. I haven't
tested #2hd yet.
Robert

Are you saying that in 72 hours, or 30 days the 8500 will freeze up?!
So all the work we did is for nothing?!?!?!?!? So I need to use the slui
otherwise I will loose the 8500 and all the hd we copied are useless
and all the Mrimgs are useless?

Do I need to put the original hd back to do the slui? I type slui in the CMD
prompt via Admin Account and then what? it gives me a phone number?
If I get my authentication back I can't clone again or it cause the same
problem again, so I'll have no backup hd for the 8500. Correct?

I noticed that there was an autorun on the Partiot should I remove it?

We just might have to use the Testdisk on the 780 but right now you have
me very worried about the 8500.

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
Are you saying that in 72 hours, or 30 days the 8500 will freeze up?!

No. If Windows is in a bad mood, it will place a notification on
the screen, saying the activation issue needs to be resolved.

The activation issue, is with a single disk, and does not
(automatically) reach out and ruin other disks.

If, however, you've made hardware changes (especially, change out motherboard!),
then *every* disk that gets plugged in, will do the same calculation
and conclude the OS is Not Genuine. So in that limited sense, the
problem follows the machine condition around.

If, however, the machine is fine, but malware "ruined" a single drive,
then that drive alone sees the Not Genuine. A Not Genuine can also
occur (on a single drive), the time clock was set to 1970, instead
of 2021, making it look like the user was trying to use a "time trick"
to make Windows run. But again, the Not Genuine determination applies
to that disk alone.

So all the work we did is for nothing?!?!?!?!? So I need to use the slui
otherwise I will loose the 8500 and all the hd we copied are useless
and all the Mrimgs are useless?

Using "slui", on a disk that needs it, is an experiment.

It's an experiment to see if the Not Genuine is a trivial one.

Now, they recommend renaming the tokens.dat file to some
other file name (my choice would be tokens.dat.bak). The tokens
file remembers the determination. I would have expected just
running "slui" to overwrite tokens.dat, but I do find articles
where it needs to be renamed, so there is then room for a
clean one to be made up. Tokens.dat is a local record of the calculations
determining that the OS should be Activated.


Do I need to put the original hd back to do the slui?

No. This "slui" thing is only to be tested on the Not Genuine disk
that you want to become Genuine again.

I type slui in the CMD
prompt via Admin Account and then what? it gives me a phone number?

slui # inspect machine, activate, if OK, just do it.
slui 4 # Feedback received from other command, indicates
# a phone call is required. Slui 4 tells you what
# phone number to use.

If I get my authentication back I can't clone again or it cause the same
problem again, so I'll have no backup hd for the 8500. Correct?

Well, it's an independent issue. The disk in question is the one
which is Not Genuine. The original 1TB drive is still Genuine.

The problem we have, is a problem cloning the original drive and
making a perfect working drive on the 8500. We need to figure out
what does that. I don't know if the phone support for Activation,
are willing to do MGADiag for you (check values). There is a forum
for activation, or at least, there used to be one. It might
be archived now.


I noticed that there was an autorun on the Partiot should I remove it?

It looked to me like perhaps the Patriot either had Windows 10 installer
or a Macrium on it. The autorun might be there to make it automatically
do a certain thing. In this case, the Patriot is most likely to be
an "image" of a DVD, which includes materials a DVD would use, such
as an autoruns.inf .

If on the other hand, you'd just formatted the Patriot, put your Bookmarks
file and nothing else, came back two weeks later and see

bookmarks.html
autoruns.inf

then that would be bad. Because the autoruns doesn't particularly belong
there. The situation does not call for it. It's superfluous. Whereas a
DVD image loaded onto a USB stick, might well legitimately have an
autoruns on it.


We just might have to use the Testdisk on the 780 but right now you have
me very worried about the 8500.

Robert

We have a puzzle to solve.

I try to avoid doing a lot of unnecessary work, like making
you install the OS all over again, reinstall all your
programs and drivers. That would suck. So that's one of my
"constraints", is not doing that. We've spent so much time
on this now, it would have almost been faster to do that.
I don't have any evidence at the moment, that points at
this being a necessity.

But you have a spare disk, if you wanted to experiment with that,
you could. I was hoping the Repair My Computer would work...
but I also know how brittle the "new way" is and the
older methods would likely have worked better (PowerQuest stuff).

Paul

So because this started with the cloning all the drives since are infected
with this Not Genuine?

I tried the slui

https://postimg.cc/212Cg0HH

https://postimg.cc/WF9WvkRc

So am I OK? Should I tried this with the #3hd? Should I put it inside the
computer for this to work?

I'll try #2hd on the 780 to see if it connects otherwise we have another problem
of (2) clones not connecting to the 780.

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
So because this started with the cloning all the drives since are infected
with this Not Genuine?

I tried the slui

https://postimg.cc/212Cg0HH

https://postimg.cc/WF9WvkRc

So am I OK? Should I tried this with the #3hd? Should I put it inside the
computer for this to work?

I'll try #2hd on the 780 to see if it connects otherwise we have another problem
of (2) clones not connecting to the 780.

Robert

That's what is supposed to happen for a Royalty OEM OS install.
"Slui" and "Yes,sir" is supposed to be the response.

It's a matter of loose ends. Why did it happen ?
Other than MGADiag and an expert to interpret it,
we would not know the why of it.

Paul

So am I OK now with the 8500?
I didn't type any thing else but slui and it gave the Authentication.

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
So am I OK now with the 8500?
I didn't type any thing else but slui and it gave the Authentication.

Robert

That particular disk is fixed (corrected).

Any other cloned disk, might require a similar
treatment, with regard to the 8500. Only the
original disk seems to be remaining Genuine, right ?

Genuine is a locally-generated status on a
particular disk installation.

If the Activation server was having a problem,
then users could see weird things. And it
sometimes takes Microsoft several days to
restore their server to a working state.

Paul

I've tried both #1 and #2 hd's in the 780 and checked disk management
and neither connected. Maybe we should erase both hd's ans re-clone them?

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
I've tried both #1 and #2 hd's in the 780 and checked disk management
and neither connected. Maybe we should erase both hd's ans re-clone them?

Robert

No line for the external disk in Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc)?

(At least the 780 has no card reader with four entries, to push
the enclosure disk off the screen.)

The Optiplex 780 has USB2 ports. The Windows 7 OS has
built-in USB2 drivers. It should work without needing
any driver work.

The Patriot can be plugged into the 780, as proof something
works. Then Safely Remove. Then unplug it.

Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) may show a yellow
mark, if the enclosure is not being detected properly.

And USBTreeView can show activity as the enclosure
is plugged in. You can start USBTreeView, then plug
in the enclosure and see if an endpoint appears with
config space info.

https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html

Paul

The original 1TB HD should be intact with the exception
of the backspace key not working. However the #3 HD
where we just increased the partition size is Not Genuine
so I need to put the #3 back in the 8500 and do the slui on
it as well.

Robert

I tried the 780 again. First I plugged in the Patriot Key as you
suggested and then I tried using #2 hd and nothing.

https://postimg.cc/JskvHkz5

https://postimg.cc/5H5rnWvH

https://postimg.cc/gXYT7tqg

Robert

I'm going to logoff and put #3 hd in the 8500 and do the slui.

Robert

I'm on #3 hd and it's Activated!
So the original 1TB is good and #3 hd and #4 hd are
good.

https://postimg.cc/hQ418fRj

https://postimg.cc/BX6CXLC7

I'm now logging off and putting #3 back in the box and
will be using #4 as my Primary from now on.

Strange the 780 doesn't even recognize the clones and
they had no problems during the process and I booted
them afterwards also.

Robert

I'm on the 8500 with the #4 hd and creating a Mrimg.
I had to delete (2) older Mrimgs because Macrium said
it did not have enough space to finish. So have re-started
the Mrimg process. I also did a System Restore point yesterday.

btw Did you happen to see the News headline that hackers stole
26million user logins from Amazon, Facebook, Apple and eBay,
which I frequent allot.

There have been times where I've checked if there was someone
else logged on to my account but so far only me. This just shows
how vulnerable we are with cookies and how any hackers can gain
access even to the Pentagon.

What get's me is websites that say we won't use your personal information
then why ask for it in the first place? It's because they sell that information
to a 3rd parties or use it themselves to generate cash.

This is the negative side of computers and our government is woefully
unprepared.

Robert

I finished the Mrimg on the 8500 but I had to delete a couple of the older
ones because Macrium gave me a message there wasn't enough room to
finish.

https://postimg.cc/Q9LkHfMj

So our problem now lies with the 780 and why won't the external hd connect?
They did fine all during the cloning. So why are they hanging up now?

Robert