Activate Win 10

[reflog369]

I have a HP 870-137c. I have registered this computer with HP. The os is corrupt and nothing I have tried to fix it is working. Now the OS is telling me to activate windows. In order to do so it wants my Win 10 product number. HP says I' out of warranty and try asking for help here?  How can I simply get my win 10 product number. I am unable to locate it.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The W10 product key for your PC should be in the BIOS.

I have zipped up and attached below, a free utility that will show you the product key and the version of W10 the key is good for.

[reflog369]

Thank you Paul. The program you sent did in fact find the "Installed Key" as well as the "OEM Key",  I tried activating using both the installed key and the oem key and get a message that says it didn't work.

Since I believe the OS is corrupt it may be preventing the os from taking a key that should work?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

That is interesting.

I would have thought that there would be no installed key and only an OEM key, but maybe the installed key is the HP volume license key used with an image loaded from the factory.

What I recommend you do is to clean install W10 by making a bootable USB installation flash drive using the media creation tool at the link below.  Create the 64 bit installation media.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Since you have some odd ball issues going on with the OS, when you get to the part of the installation that asks, 'Where do you want to install Windows, delete every partition on the hard drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space.

Click Next, and W10 should install.  It should automatically detect the OEM key in the BIOS, and automatically activate.

After W10 has completed installing, you can install the drivers and available software from your PC's support page.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/OMEN-by-HP-870-100-Desktop-PC-series/12079703/model...

Your other option would be to order recovery media from HP.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/mediaorder/OMEN-by-HP-870-100-Desktop-PC-series/12079703/model/12740584...

[reflog369]

Thanks for your quick response.

I have twice tried using win 10 installation media from the link you provided. The 1st time it went through the entire process and the ran into an error and reversed the update. I installed again from another machine running win 7 and now the usb is corrupt and unusable. lol

I have run umpteen scans on the drive, virus checks, ram checks etc.  All the tests show no hardware issues.

My guess is (In order) that 1-The hard drive (ssd) is bad 2-one of the ram chips is bad 3-there is a virus that doesn't get picked up.  This all started when ALL of my folders and files on the desktop disappeared. Then other programs I was running had huge issues and then win 10 keep randomly restarts the computer. 

If I start by replacing the SSD drive (C drive) will it come with win 10 and rebuild the bios? Will it then give me an additional area to register the product key? I bought the computer at Costco and never had a win 10 disk so I could just boot to the command prompt and reinstall a fresh os and reinstall the programs.

I have a better than average understanding of computer issues but this time I'm truly stumped!!! 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Any disk you buy would not have an OS on it.

Try this instead...since your PC has a DVD burner, download the ISO file instead of making the bootable USB flash drive.

Use the Microsoft tool that I zipped up and attached below that you will need to transfer the ISO file to a DVD so that it is bootable.

To boot from a DVD, you need to enable legacy mode and disable secure boot in the BIOS.

See this link for the settings to change.   Then you should be able to boot from the legacy DVD drive.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03659945

It is possible that you have a bad memory chip that passes the tests.

What you could try if your PC has more than one would be to remove all but one and try them out one at at time, and if the issues go away, keep at it until you find the bad memory chip.

I've had that happen to me on two different PC's where a faulty memory chip was baffling me to no end.

[reflog369]

"Try this instead...since your PC has a DVD burner, download the ISO file instead of making the bootable USB flash drive."

     Where do I download the ISO? being out of warranty gives me options for drivers, Bios and firmware but I don't see ISO?

"It is possible that you have a bad memory chip that passes the tests."

   I believe so but I know that the os is corrupt. I can't update critical updates or now even activate it. I thought a bad ram chip would only affect performance? Could it ruin the OS? Is there a better way to test for bad ram than through products like Glary?

I will download the ISO after you tell me where and try burning a dvd and following those instructions....

Again, thank you for your help Paul!!!!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

You would download the ISO file from the link Media creation tool link I posted earlier.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

It gives you two options:

Automatically create the bootable USB installer

Download an ISO file instead.

Select the Download ISO file option.

[reflog369]

Ok, didn't see the ISO info until I downloaded.

"See this link for the settings to change.   Then you should be able to boot from the legacy DVD drive."

  The link you provided says "HP PCs - Cannot Start Desktop Computer From a Bootable CD or DVD (Windows 8)"  Does this apply for Win 10 also?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yes, I believe that you have to change those settings on any HP PC that comes with W8 or newer.

You can try booting from the DVD as the BIOS is set now, if it shows up as a bootable device, but if not, or it won't boot, then you will need to change the settings.