Need Windows boot disk

[GEKEALEY]

My hard drive died an I’ve replaced it with an SSD. I understand that my Slimline Desktop did not come with a recovery disk and I never made my own. Does anyone know if I can buy a discounted Windows recovery disk from HP? There is no Windows product key sticker on the PC, so I assume the key is probably somehow lined to my PC hardware.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The product specs for your PC indicate that it came from HP with W10, so that is why there is no W7 product key sticker on the case.  If you want to reinstall W7 and don't have a product key or disk, you would have to purchase it from a 3rd party somewhere.  HP did not offer W7 on that model, so they wouldn't have W7 recovery media.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04798560

You can reinstall W10 for free as follows...

You can make a W10 USB flash drive installer with the Microsoft Media Creation Tool, using an 8 GB flash drive using another Windows PC, if your PC is not working.

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

If you are asked to enter a product key during the installation process, select the 'I don't have a product key' option, and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

Here are the steps to create the W10 USB flash drive installer...

Select Download tool now, and select Run.

If you agree to the license terms, select Accept.

On the What do you want to do? page, select Create installation media for another PC, and then select Next.

Select the language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit) for Windows 10. You want 64 bit.

Select which media you want to use:

USB flash drive. Plug in a blank USB flash drive with at least 8GB of space. Any content on the flash drive will be deleted.

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

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/drivers/selfservice/HP-Slimline-400-Desktop-PC-series/8499658/model/868...

[NicoleSharp100]

Unless you have a Microsoft Windows 7 activation key, without a factory reset disc, you will unfortunately need to purchase or obtain a new Windows license.  If you are a student, you may be able to get a free copy of Microsoft Windows 10 for academic use.

If you can't get a new Windows license, then your best option is to install Linux.  There are a number of Linux distributions that you can try out as live media before installing if you have another PC that can burn discs or format a USB flash drive.  You may still be able to run some of your Windows applications on Linux without a Windows license using WINE.