steven1546

Q: Did formatting my ssd result in windows being unable to verify my key upon installation?


Short summarized:

My machine: Macbook pro mid 2012
What I have: Samsung Evo SSD, Optical bay caddy, windows 8.1 bootable dvd with serial
I wanted to: Install windows in my second internal SSD(optical bay)
What went wrong: Entering key I get: "We couldn't verify the product key. Please check your installation media."

I suspect the problem is: I mistakenly formatted the SSD to mac prior.


Question: Was formatting my SSD the cause of the problem? and if so how do I go about resetting it?

 

 

 


Long detailed version

I have a mid 2012 non retina macbook pro which I wanted to have the option to be able to boot from a windows and a mac. As a result, I bought a samsung EVO solid state drive for this purpose. I decided to try the drive out and put it in the caddy in place of the optical drive the day I got it. I was prompted with the message that the mac was unable to recognize it and followed some steps online to format it. I would later find out when looking at a forum that I should have left the SSD unformatted. Nevertheless I tried to install windows on the EVO by placing the optical drive back into the computer, and putting the EVO in the main bay. I put the windows cd in and was prompted with the installation. Everything was smooth until I had to put in the windows key. I put it in and received the message "We couldn't verify the product key. Please check your installation media." I double checked to see if it was the right key by intentionally entering a wrong key to which it gave me a message the the key was invalid. Snooping around I tried to reset the disc using the offered advanced tools and was told that windows did not have access to the partition or something along those lines.

Was formatting the drive the source to the error and if so is there a way to get it back to factory settings?

Any and all advice/help is greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!

MacBook Pro, iOS 10

Posted on Sep 15, 2016 10:25 PM

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Q: Did formatting my ssd result in windows being unable to verify my key upon installation?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Loner T,Helpful

    Loner T Loner T Sep 16, 2016 6:38 PM in response to steven1546
    Level 7 (23,955 points)
    Safari
    Sep 16, 2016 6:38 PM in response to steven1546

    Formatting the SSD is not related to the issue with the Product Key. The Windows Installer will reformat the SSD in the main bay to NTFS anyway. If the SSD is smaller than 2TB, you can format as MBR with FAT32 format and retry.

     

    Your model supports installing from DVD and USB, both. You can also download the W8.1 ISO from Microsoft at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8ISO to make sure your DVD is not a multi-bit (32-bit and 64-bit DVD).

  • by steven1546,

    steven1546 steven1546 Sep 16, 2016 6:49 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Windows Software
    Sep 16, 2016 6:49 PM in response to Loner T

    Thanks for the reply!

     

    I reformatted the hard drive to MS DOS (FAT) and was able to make it past the product key section. I found an option to format the drive to NTFS and installed windows on it.

     

    Windows runs fine (albeit missing some drivers) when the disk in in the main bay. But as soon as I try migrating it to the optical bay and turning it on via alt/option key boot, I am greeted with an endless black screen with a blinking underscore.

     

    Any idea what the problem could be or what I could do to remedy it?

     

    Thanks so much once again for your help!

  • by Loner T,Solvedanswer

    Loner T Loner T Sep 16, 2016 8:42 PM in response to steven1546
    Level 7 (23,955 points)
    Safari
    Sep 16, 2016 8:42 PM in response to steven1546

    Windows will work properly only in the main bay. Put your OS X installation in the Optibay caddy and test both OSes.