restore operating system after change of hard drive

[sayou]

Hi,

I want to change one of my 1TB hard drive to an SSD drive (2.5 inch SATA SSD. Samsung Evo 850) but I want the SSD drive to use the operating system and I will use the second 1TB drive to have my data(Documents, Music, ...).

My question is since I don't have a Windows 8.1 pro disk, how can I install the operating system on the newly added SSD drive after swapping the disks?

Thanks

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

You can reinstall W8.1 Pro as follows...

Install W8.1 by creating the Microsoft installation media, using another Windows PC, if your PC is not working...You want W8.1 Pro 64 bit.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8ISO

Only if you are asked to enter a product key during the installation process, use this generic key.

This is the generic key for W8.1 Professional

XHQ8N-C3MCJ-RQXB6-WCHYG-C9WKB

If you had to enter the generic key, manually change the generic product key to the W8.1 Pro key in your PC's BIOS in the PC settings menu.

After you get W8.1 installed, and you had to manually enter the generic product key, you will need to run the free utility I zipped up and attached below, that will show you show the W8.1 product key in your PC's BIOS.

I have also zipped up and attached below, the Microsoft tool which hopefully will transfer the ISO file to a DVD or usb flash drive so it is bootable.

Then you can install the available drivers and software from your PC's support page.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/HP-ENVY-17-Notebook-PC-series/6521474/model/6521475

[sayou]

Thanks will give it a try

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.