Invalid Serial numbers after hard drive replacement

[skypierce]

Hi everyone,

Iʻm new here, so Iʻm not sure this is in the right place... Iʻm using CS3  on a Mac running 10.6.6. My hard drive recently died and has been replaced. Everything is recovered using my Time Machine backups, but all my CS3 software is requiring the serial number at launch, as though Iʻve never installed it. When I enter the serial numbers I got with the software, it says they are invalid. Can anyone help?

[Preran]

If you are confident that your serial numbers are valid for the products you are trying to install, I’d suggest that you contact customer support.

http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/

You can use the various options on this page to contact Adobe support.

[Jeffrey_A_Wright]

Skypierece I would recommend attempting to remove the software using the uninstaller and then try reinstalling from the install media.  The uninstaller can be found in Applications/Utitlities/Adobe Installers.  Please feel to respond to this thread if you continue to experience difficulties.  We may need to perform additional step but lets start with the simplest solution first.

In the future I would recommend utilizing time machines for documents and preferences.  Applications, such as Adobe applications, which are dependant on files in multiple locations are not easily restored through Time Machine.

[skypierce]

Hi Jeff, it seems the uninstaller in that location is only an alias, and I get this when I try to open it: The alias “Add or Remove Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Standard” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found. Is there another way to uninstall?

[Jeffrey_A_Wright]

You can manually remove the files or try utilizing the CS5 Cleaner Tool to remove the installed files. The most important folders to remove, and probably causing a portion of your difficulties, is the following folders:

Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PCD

Library/Application Support/Adobe/caps

Even after running the Cleaner tool I would recommend verifying these folders are removed prior to reinstalling.

[Mylenium]

Never ever restore Adobe software from a backup or migration assistant. They al lrequire to be installed properly and what may complicate matetrs in your case is that it may require a serial during install, anyway, because it's an upgrade of a previous version or something like that...

Mylenium