Cloning SSD With RSLogix 500/FTA Installed?

[JZerb 2]

so, i have a 120gb ssd in my laptop and i just bought a 250gb msata ssd for it and i would like to just clone the existing drive onto the new one; then use the new one to boot from, save new files to etc.  Leave the 120gb ssd in the laptop and if anything were to ever happen with the 250gb msata ssd, i would have a full backup of my programs, files, etc and HOPEFULLY set myself up to have little to no downtime if a catastrophic issue were to ever arise.  My question is will that mess with the rockwell software that i have installed on the rive currently? I changed the name of the computer a few weeks back, to something a little more grownup since i now use this thing at work on a network that others can see, and i had to do something there to rehost FTA so that it would work again.  Hopefully something like that doesnt need to happen again.    

[kaiser_will 65]

Yes...when you copy a HD contents to another hard drive, the FTActivationManager license file will need to be re-activated for this new hard drive.  BEFORE you pull the old drive out, startup FTActivationManager and get on the phone with Rockwell license service; then after the hew drive is in service, you will have to do the same procedure to check in the license and activate.

[JZerb 2]

I forgot to mention that the license I use is shared with another computer at work already via one of ABs activation dongles. If I put that in the original post would you have given me the same answer above? 

[kaiser_will 65]

I cannot say, JZerb, as the dongle-less licensing has been our stay for a few years.  Since your license is on a USB dongle, you SHOULD be OK.  You should contact Rockwell License Activation and verify.

[Joe E. 259]

With a Rockwell USB dongle, you used to be able to just copy the activation files to the right directory in the new laptop/HDD.  The activation file contains encrypted info about the "hardware device" you tie it to.  That hardware device must be present for it to activate.  The dongle is just a mobile hardware device.

YMMV, it wouldn't hurt to contact RA to be sure.  Activation support is free.

[JZerb 2]

Thank you both for your answers. I will give this a go in the next week or so and report back here so others who may have the same question will know the outcome. 

[JRoss 84]

As already mention, activation is tied to hardware, could be a hard drive serial number, a network card, or a USB dongle. If your activation is tied to the hard drive serial number, cloning likely will break the activation. But if it's tied to network card or USB dongle, cloning should work with no problem.

[JZerb 2]

Awesome. I hope to get this setup in the next week or so and like I said above, I'll post back with the results. I figured what you just said above, since the activation is tied to the USB dongle. Cloning the hard drive shouldn't cause an issue.