How to Fix Activation Error 0x80070570 in Windows 10

Recently, my Windows 10 PC started to show that it needs to be activated which was very surprising as I have already done so months ago. As I tried to activate again, it threw up an error message explaining nothing but just displaying – “An error has occurred”. When I clicked on “Show more”, the error code 0x80070570 and a one line description was shown – “The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”. A little investigation revealed that the file system had become corrupt and the folder where activation tokens are stored are not only corrupt, but they are also totally inaccessible – making Windows deactivated. There could be a number of reasons why this could happen like malware infection or disk failure. All of these problems should also be taken care of in addition to fixing the file system.

Fixing Windows 10 Activation Error 0x80070570

Here is how you can fix the file system of the system partition (the partition on which Windows is installed):

  1. Right-click anywhere on the taskbar and choose Settings from there.Fixing Windows 10 Activation Error 0x80070570
  2. In the Settings window, select Home, then Update & Security and then Recovery.
  3. Click on Restart Now button under the Advanced Startup.Fixing Windows 10 Activation Error 0x80070570
  4. When Windows restarts, choose Troubleshoot, then Advanced Options and then Command Prompt.
  5. In the command prompt, type chkdsk /f C: and press Enter. Assuming that you have installed Windows 10 on the C: drive (most people install it on C:).Fixing Windows 10 Activation Error 0x80070570
  6. Wait for the disk checking utility to fix file system problems if it finds any and when it is done, you can type Exit in the command prompt and press Enter. Afterwards, you can choose to continue to boot into Windows 10 normally.

This fixed all of my activation related problems. The activation performed after I rebooted into Windows 10 was instantly successful. But if you still face some problems, then perhaps you have to try re-installing Windows 10 or replacing the possible faulty storage hardware (HDD/SSD or the cables connected them to the motherboard). In case you decide to change the disks, you might have to call Microsoft and explain to them why you changed the hardware components.