Our IT department gave me an HP laptop running Win 7 that they were going to dispose. It has Sophos Security and was locked up.

I removed the SSD and re-imaged it with my Win 10 laptop. The SSD was reinstalled in the HP. I created a Win 10 USB boot drive using the Microsoft media generator and changed the bios boot sequence to USB drive first. I also reset the bios to factory settings.

When I power on the laptop, it displays GM401: Invalid kernel. This error seems to be synonymous to Win 7. Any ideas on how to proceed? My initial thought is that I need a Win 7 USB boot drive.

You need to do a fresh install not image from another computer.
HAL issues as well as future license issues.

What he said ^^^^^

What you attempted is a violation of Microsoft's licensing terms (which is why they've instituted measures to prevent it working) and, unless I'm mistaken, the law.

You want MS-Win 10? Pay for it. You want free? Install Linux. (I'm partial to Mint for desktops and laptops.)

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
What he said ^^^^^

What you attempted is a violation of Microsoft's licensing terms (which is why they've instituted measures to prevent it working) and, unless I'm mistaken, the law.

You want MS-Win 10? Pay for it. You want free? Install Linux. (I'm partial to Mint for desktops and laptops.)

What about the Windows 10.0.10586 Build 10586 (November Update)? Microsoft gave that away for free, and it updates the OS, activates the original Win 7/8 keys to a digital entitlement key, and then updates itself to 1909/2004?

I have a new license for Win 10. The issue was the laptop being locked up by Sophos. Most of the web searches said to re-image the SSD and then create a USB boot drive. After the laptop booted up, it would ask for the new license key to proceed with loading the OS from Microsoft.

You CAN do a clean install (Recovery of the Win7 OEM Image) to that laptop, and then upgrade to Win10....VERY Likely at NO cost!

You just need to do a little digging (either on HP's support site) or possibly w/ your IT department to get a bootable Recovery image for your free laptop if they still have it. Then upgrade to Win10 if that's your preference.

Depending on the vintage of the HP Laptop, it may even have a WIn10 License downgraded to Win7, in which case you could just get a bootable Win10 Recovery Image from HP and not have to deal with upgrading all the Drivers.

FYI - This is easily done w/ Dell and Lenovo Laptops/PC's. I've done it w/ five Lenovo ThinkPads/ThinkStations and two Dell Latitudes, w/ ZERO add'l cost to upgrade to Win10. I assume you could do the same with an HP machine as well.

You pulled the SSD and connected it to your Win10 Laptop \ Wiped it clean \ Put it back into the original laptop and tried to install Win10 on it and now get this error? And it seems the error is because of the Saphos encryption?

A quick Google search showed the Saphos site had some suggestions on how to get around it.

Given that you can find copies of 10 all over ebay for around $30 or less, and the laptop has an SSD already in it, just buy 10 pro and start from scratch. I did the same recently with a fairly nice Acer laptop dumped at the recycling center and the wife now has a super fast machine for work for cheap.