Product Key

[Hunk32]

After the harddrive that came with my machine got damaged, I replaced it without making any sort of recovery drive. My friend then installed win8.1 on the new harddrive and it seemed perfect.

Unfortunately, it started misbehaving in no time. I tried to do a refresh but it failed and the response was "some files are missing, insert the installation media". Since someone said a downloaded win8.1 will automatically detect the product key from EFI or motherboard during installation, I downloaded a win8.1 from Microsoft but it still required the product key.

What should I do now?
Where do I get this product key?

Pliz help agently.
Regards.

[DavidSMP]

Hi @Hunk32,

Thanks for stopping by the HP Support Forums!  🙂 Good day.  I read your post about the computer asking for a product key after a replaced hard drive and installing windows 8 on it. I will be delighted to assist you here. 🙂

Stupendous diagnosis and spectacular analysis of the issue before posting.  Kudos to you on that score. It is always a privilege to work with technical specialists like you. 🙂

We greatly value your relationship with HP. You are a valued HP customer and we appreciate you greatly for doing business with HP. I take it as a privilege to share this platform with you.:)

For better clarity and to assist you better, I would require more information regarding this:

• Did you create any recovery media before the hard drive was replaced?
  
   
• It looks like you’ve installed a retail version of Microsoft Windows 8 and hence it is asking you for a product key.
• You will need to contact Microsoft to buy the product key to make it a fully-fledged licensed Operating system.
• Please follow the instructions on the screen to obtain the product key from Microsoft.
• HP will not be able to provide the product key for this version as we do not have it with us and it will also violate Microsoft copyright protection rights.

If you’ve created HP recovery media, then you could install the operating system using the HP recovery media that came with the system before the upgrade.

If you’ve created the recovery media use this link to perform a recovery to factory settings: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03489643

Please select the most relevant option that best describes your computer.

Also if you’ve not created HP recovery media, you could contact HP phone support to order recovery media, for your computer by performing these steps:

Step 1. Open link: www.hp.com/contacthp/

Step 2. Enter Product number or select to auto detect

Step 3. Scroll down to "Still need help? Complete the form to select your contact options"

Step 4. Scroll down and click: HP contact options - click on Get phone number, Case number and phone number appear.

They will be happy to assist you immediately.

Once you obtain the recovery media you could use the link for running system recovery on your machine. Please keep in mind that the recovery media from HP is a lot more cost effective than obtaining the product key from Microsoft.

Hope this helps.  Let me know how this goes. I genuinely hope the issue gets resolved without hassles and the unit works great. 🙂  Please reach out for any issues and I'll be there to assist you. 🙂

To simply say thanks, please click the "Thumbs Up" button to give me a Kudos to appreciate my efforts to help.

 If this helps, please mark this as “Accepted Solution” as it will help several others with the same issue to get it resolved without hassles. 🙂

Take care now and have a splendid week ahead. 🙂