Windows Activation Error

[Isley6628]

So I recently had an incident at work where my work laptop got smashed but the harddrive stayed in tack. Work gave me an identical laptop, but I had so much information on my old I harddrive and software that I didn't want to have to get over again. I extracted the Windows product key off of the harddrive in the new laptop and saved that. I then put the harddrive out of the old laptop and into the new one and of course it said there was an error with activating the windows product key. So I took the product key that should have been for this new laptop and put it in and it is giving me an activation error saying it isn't valid. Can you guys help am I doing something wrong?

 

[carnageX]

What version of Windows is this?

If it's the same OS as the new PC...then you could just get the key from the new system, and select the "Change Product Key" option, and switch it to the new PC's product key.