Malware or drive failure? Machine is crippled

simrick said:

If the thing had W10 on it, and was activated, you just need to reinstall W10 and skip entering the key, if it asks for one. The MS servers will apply the Digital Entitlement. Changing a drive does not affect activation. Simply download the W10 ISO from MSTechBench - it will have both Home + Pro versions on it (just select the proper bitness). Install the version you had and it will auto-activate, if not immediately, after a couple of boots.

That's the great thing about W10: once it has been activated on a system, the Digital Entitlement allows you to reinstall as many times as you want/need.

Huh... how does it know if the drive that had windows on it is gone though?

Also, I can burn the tech bench iso to a disk and boot into the new HD and install windows that way?


Edit: I got the product key! (or a product key, not sure if it's guaranteed to be accurate...)

adamgm said:

Huh... how does it know if the drive that had windows on it is gone though?

Almost every piece of hardware can be uniquely identified, by its serial number, MAC address, etc, which are stored on MS' servers and linked to your license, which is uniquely identified by its product key.

Slartybart said:

This is an interesting test case.

Product Key: Retail license
Digital Entitlement: Upgrade ... activation information stored on MS servers
OEM (Dell, HP, Asus, etc): Key is embedded in firmware

So what does Adam have? A PC builder machine.

The first attetmpt as NovHak and simrick implied is to just try installing Win10 on the new HDD (or SSD).
Skip entering the key on the windows that ask - it will either activate or you cna add the key afterward the instal finishes

The two scenarios where Win10 will activate without entering a key during install are: OEM and Digital Entitlement
The only scenario where you would have to enter a key after installing would be a Retail product (probably includes OEM builder license).

Did you run Check Product Key in Showkey?
Does the result confirm your installed edition?

If so, then you're probably good to go ... not much more for me to offer ... good luck

Bill
.

The result said it was win 10, if that's what you mean. I called MS and asked if they could verify my key, they said there was an error, but the language barrier was brutal.

simrick said:

It may be too large and you'll need a flash drive. Otherwise, get the ISO for your flavor of Windows (home or pro) by using the Media Creation Tool.





Try installing without entering any key first. It may activate automatically.

I'll probably get a drive today and try it out. I'll report back!

Slartybart said:

This is an interesting test case.

Product Key: Retail license
Digital Entitlement: Upgrade ... activation information stored on MS servers
OEM (Dell, HP, Asus, etc): Key is embedded in firmware

So what does Adam have? A PC builder machine.

The first attetmpt as NovHak and simrick implied is to just try installing Win10 on the new HDD (or SSD).
Skip entering the key on the windows that ask - it will either activate or you cna add the key afterward the instal finishes

The two scenarios where Win10 will activate without entering a key during install are: OEM and Digital Entitlement
The only scenario where you would have to enter a key after installing would be a Retail product (probably includes OEM builder license).

Did you run Check Product Key in Showkey?
Does the result confirm your installed edition?

If so, then you're probably good to go ... not much more for me to offer ... good luck

Bill
.

To respond to this more directly; I wasn't able to get it with ShowKey, it said that there was no OEM in the firmware in the backup - I also tried running the executable from the bad drive, with the same result.

However, I did install Lazesoft software recovery suite to the bad drive (very slowly) and it has a password/key recovery option which is what gave me my key.

A good sign is, putting that key into Showkey does also give me the correct version.