"This copy of Windows is not genuine"

[#1]

I have just installed win7 only to have the message “ windows 7, Build 7600. This copy of Windows is not genuine”. Well it is genuine I bought It, a upgrade copy in dec 2009 from a official Microsoft site, this is the first time I have attempted to install it.
I have bought a new hard drive to do the installation on, disconnected my old hard drive and because it is a upgrade win 7 disc I installed my copy of win xp in C (I did not activate the xp, is that were I have gone wrong?) I then installed win 7 as a custom installation in C drive only to be told it was not genuine.
The only other thing that could be wrong is that back in December 2009 I bought 2 upgrade copies of win7 and received 2 product keys but as they charged extra for the cd I only bought one cd. I have successfully upgraded the laptop from vista to win7 using the cd and the other product key. I did not think that the product key was paired to the CD.

[#2]

It isn't.The key isn't tied to the install disk.The problem was that the upgrade disk looked for a licensed copy of XP
To get round the problem you could try the system here
http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media.aspx

[#3]

Thanks Oldjim
If the problem is the upgrade disk is looking for a licensed copy of XP, should I not reformat C, install XP, activate XP and then use the win 7 upgrade cd to install win7

[#4]

up to you

[#5]

I started again, installed xp, activated it, then installed win7, which was fine so that is sorted.
In the past when In the past when I have installed XP it has needed the drivers for motherboard, graphics card etc. So I had downloaded the win7 drivers to have them ready but win7 seems to work well without me doing anything. Do I need to use the downloaded drivers

[#6]

Look in Device Manager.  Does anything have an exclamation mark or a question mark next to it.  Then check the drivers that you are expecting to be there have been installed.  When I installed Windows 7, Microsoft substituted its own generic driver for the Realtek High Definition Audio Driver so I had to install that one myself.  I don't know if that still happens.   

[#7]

I've found W7 very good at finding drivers on the whole.
The Realtek issue I've seen (quite recently as it happens) on Vista - only because I wondered why the front audio sockets weren't working on a PC I was "fettling". Downloaded the correct drivers from the motherboard site and all was well.

[#8]

Well pretty impressive Windows has installed the correct A T I Radeon driver for the graphics card, it installed its own audio drivers but they seem to be working okay.
I have installed Windows 7 on a new hard drive, in a PC which was previously running XP, I can select which drive to boot to using the BIOS on start-up. But my Windows 7 is an upgrade version upgraded from XP, will Microsoft still let me use my Windows XP on the other hard drive? because of course the same product key was used for both instances of XP. Now that I've got when Windows 7 running I don't envisage wanting to do a lot with my old XP installation but you never know.

[#9]

So when you installed Windows 7, did you do it as an upgrade or a complete new install? I don't think it can upgrade without a previous version of Windows to install on top of (though could be wrong here), so if you didn't have two XP installs on that PC before you upgraded you may have overwritten the XP install.
Sounds from what you've said though that this wouldn't be too much of a problem, if it is indeed the case. I have to say I'm very impressed with Windows 7 overall.

[#10]

I started with a PC with one physical hard drive running XP. I disconnected that hard drive, bought a new physical hard drive and because my Windows 7 was an upgrade copy, I installed XP on the new hard drive, and then used my upgrade copy of Windows 7. The first time I tried I did not activate XP before installing or upgrading to Windows 7, and Windows 7 reported that it was not a genuine copy of Windows 7.
I formatted the hard drive installed XP again, did a telephone activation (using the product key which was also used some years ago for the original XP installation) and then installed my upgrade Windows 7 which is working fine now.
What I was wondering is, if I boot to the original hard drive with only XP, the original XP on it, will Microsoft still do let me use XP?

[#11]

I'd have thought you'd be fine with that, especially if you had to enter a separate key for the win 7 upgrade (even if not, thinking about it) as either a) you'll never be in a situation where both installs are being used at the same time or b) the second XP install to all intents and purposes no longer exists.