Windows 8 key issue

sweetie

Bought the old fella an Asus F551ca laptop from argos ebay outlet at xmas delivered to parcelmotel. The hard drive failed after a few months and although under warranty they would only cover it being collected from uk/NI address so I threw in a spare hard drive I had at home and reinstalled windows 8. The problem is that it's now looking for the product key for Win 8 which didnt come with any of the documentation or isnt stickered on the laptop. After getting in contact with argos support they suggested it should be hardwired into the BIOS (where?) or to return it to them which isn't an option. Any ideas on what to do?

mp22

The key is in the bios and windows should pick it up when it is installed,the main reason for this not happening is that you have installed a different version of windows than was there on day one.

In my experience, the only time that Windows 8 will pick up the key from the BIOS is if you use the original install image from the manufacturer. I've never seen it work with a generic disc.

What I'd do is to download the latest version of ProduKey from nirsoft.net, save it to a flash drive and then run it on the laptop. You can do that from the Windows 8 disc by press Shift+F10 after booting from the disc, this will open a command prompt.

sweetie

thanks, yeah I never got or setup a recovery disc so used a generice 64bit disc from work to install it. What will produkey do then?

It'll retrieve the product key from the BIOS if it hasn't already done so, you can then activate it manually.

sweetie

Karsini wrote: »

It'll retrieve the product key from the BIOS if it hasn't already done so, you can then activate it manually.

thanks for the advice.

uck51js9zml2yt

As a side note. I used Belarc advisor last week to retrieve keys from my old laptop.
It also picked up the Windows key.

allthedoyles

Karsini wrote: »

In my experience, the only time that Windows 8 will pick up the key from the BIOS is if you use the original install image from the manufacturer. I've never seen it work with a generic disc.

What I'd do is to download the latest version of ProduKey from nirsoft.net, save it to a flash drive and then run it on the laptop. You can do that from the Windows 8 disc by press Shift+F10 after booting from the disc, this will open a command prompt.

I just retrieved all product keys using this

sweetie

I need to reinstall windows 8 basic instead of pro, where would I get a disc?

sweetie

sweetie wrote: »

I need to reinstall windows 8 basic instead of pro, where would I get a disc?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media