Find my windows product key using serial number. drive has been formatted.

[SofaKingTechie]

I am trying to recover my mothers PC.  Her drive has been formatted.   I have the ability to reinstall the OS but don't know ecaxtly what OS came with it.  Im pretty sure it was windows 8, then they upgraded to 10 and had a major issue, causing them to somehow format their drive.  So now all I have is the serial#, and need to find which OS came preinstalled, and the key for it.  The HP support website really had no answers for me.  Is there a way to find out what OS and the key using only the serial number?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

According to the specs at the link below, the PC originally came with W10 Home from HP.

See the top of page 2.

https://groupon.s3.amazonaws.com/editorial-images/Groupon%20Goods/Groupon%20Goods/HP%2023%22%20All%2...

So, the easiest and least expensive thing to do would be to reinstall W10 by making your own plain W10 installation media by using the Media Creation Tool at the link below.

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

You will be given the option of making a bootable W10 installation flash drive (you will need a 4 GB flash drive for that), or save an ISO file, which you can burn to a DVD using your DVD burning program's burn ISO file option.

The software will work with the W10 product key in the PC's BIOS and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

Then after W10 is installed, you can install the drivers and available software from the PC's support page below.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-23-r100-all-in-one-desktop-pc-series/8499701/model/8558092/p...

Or you can order W10 recovery media from HP for the PC at the link below...

https://support.hp.com/us-en/mediaorder/HP-23-r100-All-in-One-Desktop-PC-series/8499701/model/855809...

[SofaKingTechie]

Thank you for your prompt response.  Installed and running.  

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.