10 upgrade fail - should I reinstall 8 or 10

Hi, just acquired a Asus x205ta laptop because last owner failed in upgrade from 8 to 10. Current state = no boot, but I can access bios and boot from USB. I created a Win 8.1 USB drive and recovery options failed but proposed boot into Win10 which fails. I can access command prompt and see windows.old. Tried fresh 8.1 install but prompts for COA (which is stored in BIOS).

I have no COA on this machine - should I be attempting a Win10 USB media or Win8 (which probably was the original OS pre-loaded).

Any tips appreciated....thx

If there has never been a successful upgrade to Windows 10 with Windows 10 activated, then doing a clean install of Windows 10 won't activate. You are probably attempting to install a retail version of Windows 8 which won't read the OEM Windows 8 key stored in Bios (if there is one).

What I would do is do a clean install of Windows 10 - the version that you think the laptop had of Windows 8 before - probably Home. Use showkey from this forum to see if there are Windows keys stored in Bios. Make sure to download an OEM version of the old windows that matches the key in Bios. Shrink the Windows 10 partition to leave about 75 gb free on the hard drive and then clean install the old Windows version on the free space. Upgrade that windows to Windows 10 and make sure it activates. Then you can just delete that partition and extend the first Windows 10 partition to fill the free space and the first Windows 10 installation should then activate.

There ought to be a COA. Is it hidden in the battery compartment?

You can only activate the free Win 10 upgrade if it is installed once as an upgrade over an activated qualifying OS (7 or 8). After that, you may clean install on the same hardware and activate online.

bobkn said:

There ought to be a COA. Is it hidden in the battery compartment?

And it probably looks just like this one:

NavyLCDR said:

And it probably looks just like this one:

this is a very lite laptop - 32gb EMMc only, no hard drive, no replacable battery (basically a disposable laptop :)) so no COA anywhere visible, except apparently in BIOS.

Currently creating Win10 media and will take NavyLCDR advice to upgrade, retrograde, then activate then upgrade again, failing that, will just install another OS with key....thx

caseyjay;368815will take [COLOR=#5D5D5D said:

NavyLCDR advice to upgrade[/COLOR]

appears to have worked - Win10 installed and is now showing as activated, previous owner probably got that far but then crashed, lucky me...thanks for your advice...

bobkn said:

There ought to be a COA. Is it hidden in the battery compartment?

Starting with Windows 8, the OEMs stopped providing COAs, ; instead, the product key is embedded in the firmware. When you reinstall the preinstalled OS version, it finds the product key and automatically reactivates.