Dead laptop, Rockwell activation, Dongle

the_msp · May 31, 2022

I've had a laptop die on me, with a win7 install. Bad news is, S5K had borrowed a license from a dongle onto it, then it died.

Have installed S5K again in a VM on a new laptop, plugged the dongle in and it says no activations available after importing the key stored on the USB.

Strange thing is the (dead) laptop will boot into windows 10 on a different HDD, but with the win7 HDD it's just a black screen constant even though there are activity lights on the laptop for HDD access etc.

I have removed the win7 HDD and can access files on it on another computer.

If I can't get the win7 to boot into windows again, float the license back to the dongle, am I goosed?

mylespetro · May 31, 2022

Rockwell activations support might be able to help you out if you call them (free/no TechConnect required from what I understand) and let them know what happened. You might need the serial number and product key.

Nova5 · May 31, 2022

the_msp said:
I've had a laptop die on me, with a win7 install. Bad news is, S5K had borrowed a license from a dongle onto it, then it died.

Have installed S5K again in a VM on a new laptop, plugged the dongle in and it says no activations available after importing the key stored on the USB.

Strange thing is the (dead) laptop will boot into windows 10 on a different HDD, but with the win7 HDD it's just a black screen constant even though there are activity lights on the laptop for HDD access etc.

I have removed the win7 HDD and can access files on it on another computer.

If I can't get the win7 to boot into windows again, float the license back to the dongle, am I goosed?

Corrupt install, laptop not dead.

plvlce · May 31, 2022

At what point does the laptop go to black screen? Immediately after bios check? Can you access the advanced boot options screen by pressing F8 as it boots?

You can access the files on the drive, so the HDD is not dead. The laptop will boot to a different drive, so the rest of the hardware is not dead.

If on the other computer that you can see files from, you set it to boot to the Win7 HDD will it boot?

I agree with Nova5 that it sounds like corruption, not a hardware failure. If you have access to the installation media you could try the startup repair option.

the_msp · Jun 11, 2022

So the win7 hdd in the laptop would do nothing, wasn't even giving me bios or prompt for F8 etc. Removing the HDD, it would after hours go to a insert boot media screen, but then the SATA wasn't hot swappable so no use. I put the win7 HDD into another laptop of same era and got it to boot, only to find that the license wasn't in fact loaned to that instance of FTAM.

Putting the dongle back into the win10 VM with new install of S5K, I discovered the FTAm didn't have the dongle in its bindings, so I ran the dongle installer .bat and it's now there and was able to borrow from it.

All is good!

I_Automation · Jun 11, 2022

One thing about borrowing too is that there is a time limit of 7 days max (I think - going by a defective memory here) You can borrow for as little as 1 day.

When the borrow period is over the original device will resume using the license (It doesn't actually leave that device, just gets flagged for the time)

If something did happen to the device that borrowed a license it will still show back up at the end, just you wouldn't be able to return it before.

Dead laptop, Rockwell activation, Dongle

the_msp

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mylespetro

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Nova5

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plvlce

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the_msp

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I_Automation

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