Win 8.1 Key will not activate

BigBoy

BigBoy

BigBoy

Soldato
Joined
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Hi guys,

I have a laptop here Toshiba Satellite c50-B-14D the hard drive has died and so I installed a new one. I have extracted the OEM key from the BIOS but cannot get it to activate using all of the methods online.

Is there specific media for OEM installed keys? the Downloader tool from MS dosent give the option of OEM and I have no clue what version was previously installed. The activation tells me this key cannot be used. Also it does not pick up the prodkey in the bios I have to use a placeholder key to get into windows at all.

Help either with OEM media or any aother ways of getting this thing to activate?
 
BigBoy said:
Hi guys,

I have a laptop here Toshiba Satellite c50-B-14D the hard drive has died and so I installed a new one. I have extracted the OEM key from the BIOS but cannot get it to activate using all of the methods online.

Is there specific media for OEM installed keys? the Downloader tool from MS dosent give the option of OEM and I have no clue what version was previously installed. The activation tells me this key cannot be used. Also it does not pick up the prodkey in the bios I have to use a placeholder key to get into windows at all.

Help either with OEM media or any aother ways of getting this thing to activate?
Click to expand...

If its a legit version of windows youre RE-installing then you can contact windows who will usually help you get it activated again, ive called them before and theyve provided me with a new key for free, i think you can get up to two keys on the same motherboard cpu combo.

I may be wrong but its worth contacting them if you fail to get another response on here.
 
I have changed a HDD for a SSD on a windows 8 system, downloaded the 8.1 ISO and activated fine using the key provided.

had to use the phone system once as well (different laptop, W7) to activate it and again had no issues

is the product key on a sticker or only in the bios?
 
Completely dead customer had left it sat on his speakers (Un shielded) I was surprised there was anything left of the computer let alone the drive!
 
I take it the laptop didn't come with any disks?

maybe give Toshiba a call and see if they can provide a copy of the disk.

the download tool I think has the bing versions on

what colour is the windows 8 sticker on the laptop as having a quick google shows blue and red versions of 8.1 with bing

failing that use the key to upgrade to windows 10?
 
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Normally the image is on another partition on your disk... OR there is a recovery tool built into the laptop that allows you to generate a recovery disk. Inconveniently you are meant to do this when you first get the laptop.

Considering Toshiba seem to have a hard time even installing the codecs onto brand new laptop that would allow the Windows demo video to run.... I don't exactly have a lot of faith in them nowadays.

Most oem's now charge for recovery disks. Good find on the image :-)
 
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