Win 8 help

koolpc

koolpc

koolpc

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I had to change the HD in my laptop.

Now, I put a new SSD in. I did have win 8.1 installed.

Laptop came with Win 8 installed. I made recovery media. The media does not work. Ziltch! Nada. Won't work!

I have tried some win 8 CDs but it keeps saying something like the media doesn't match the key. Not sure which version my laptop came with!

Can I buy an oem version of Win 8 and install that and then put in the product key from that? Will that work?

I checked the manufacturer website and it states no recovery media available for my laptop.

Any help would be great. Ta
 
You can download the Windows 8.1 iso and install that using the place holder key - there are a few threads about this here.

You should then be able to activate it using your own key. That does work for retail, but not sure about OEM versions. May be worth a look though.
 
zola25 said:
You can download the Windows 8.1 iso and install that using the place holder key - there are a few threads about this here.

You should then be able to activate it using your own key. That does work for retail, but not sure about OEM versions. May be worth a look though.
Click to expand...

Thanks
 
If you put the original hdd back in the laptop you can extract the embedded key using a tool like Belarc Advisor. You then need to find an iso of the appropriate Windows 8.1 iso. (Professional or Core depending on the version on the laptop). Install using the iso, and you will (probably) need to use a generic key (google). Do not Activate Windows. Use the "slmgr -ipk XXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX" command to switch to the original key (the XXXXs above) you extracted with Belarc. Activate - you will probably need to use the automated phone system. There's a few guides about for this method, but the above is about it. To make the ISO into a UEFI/GPT bootable usb, google a tool called RUFUS. My preference is to switch to MBR/Legacy Bios. In UEFI disable "Secure Boot" and enable "CSM". If your SSD is already formatted GPT you can change to MBR using DISKPART (google) during installation. Life is much simpler with MBR if you don't need oodles of partitions.
 
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