G+_Chris Lindhartsen Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Does anyone here have experience re-installing Windows 8 on a machine that came with an OEM edition installed? I replaced the hard drive in my laptop with an SSD and found I couldn't install using retail media, and the Recovery Partition on my original hard drive doesn't want to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Reed Hanson Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 What brand of laptop is it? Some OEM's, lock down their products in the BIOS. Do a search on how to get into your bios and unlocking it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Chris Lindhartsen Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 It's an ASUS laptop Reed Hanson. I'll look over their site again and see if I can find anything elsewhere. A support chat person wants me to send the laptop back in - which seems excessive considering this is a Windows installation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Taylor Graham Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Usually you can just get a installation disk that matches the edition you had installed originally, install it, and use the product key on the sticker attached to your machine. That didn't work? Dunno about the recovery partition. Those are useless anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Phillip Adcock Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 I had the same issue, I contacted the hard drive maker for both failed drive and replacement (Western Digital), I contacted Microsoft asking if they knew of a solution (Go buy a system builder version Windows)..I also contacted Geeksquad since I was just outside of Warranty and was told it would cost me about 150 to get everything switched and up and running. I ended up just putting linux on my hard drive and grab a few files I could from the failing but not yet completely failed drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Taylor Graham Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Don't pay for a system builder disc! That's be a waste. Ron's advice above should work if you don't have installation media laying around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Reed Hanson Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Here is what I could find, it's not much http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/64241-35-locked-laptop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Mike Lawrence Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 You may need to reinitialize your disk. http://windowsitpro.com/networking/initializing-windows-disks-diskpart I've run into this issue before. I always demand a real windows install dvd with a new pc to allow me to reinstall the OS on a new system. Better to practice when you have no data then try when it crashes and you have no choice. A backup that has never been tested is always suspect. Plus I want to know early if the recovered system is unstable. I create a USB with everything the system needs outside the windows install dvd. Unfortunately, my Dell XPS18 USB3 ports never worked after I reinstalled. But Im not sure if it was the reinstall or mfg device issue. There are a lot of Dell systems with flakey USB3 ports. I just ordered a new hp zbook 17 with thunderbolt 2. PCIe allows you unlock the full power of the fastest SSDs, and Thunderbolt 2 allows you to move the tech that obsoletes the fastest outside of the main computer. I expect thunderbolt will extend the life of your average pc for this reason. Remote GPUs are even possible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Chris Lindhartsen Posted November 9, 2014 Author Share Posted November 9, 2014 Actually, to provide an update on this thread, it appears Microsoft has released a tool to download a copy of Windows 8.1 Update that'll work in this situation. The link follows, and worked perfectly on my laptop - though I upgraded it back to Windows 10 Technical Preview. http://www.neowin.net/news/how-to-create-windows-81-install-media-if-you-lost-your-install-disk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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