Reinstall Windows 10 on Compaq Pro 6300 MT

[Xinod]

Hi there, my desktop is not able to start anymore because of virus/malwares activity, I would like to format it and re-install windows 10 pro. I’ve bought it second-hand so I’m not sure it came with that operating system or it has been upgraded from win7 or 8.

There’s no visible windows licence, am I right in assuming the licence is coupled to the motherboard and windows 10 will get automatically verified once the machine will be online again?

Right now the machine is not able to pass the OS diagnostic stage, every options fail, even just resetting with or without losing the data, system restore fails for every recovery point. What would be the best procedure to reinstall? Can I format it simply providing a window 10 dvd rom or do I need to format it first?

Thanks for any help

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

You are correct.  All you have to do is to use the media creation tool to make your W10 installation media.

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

If you are asked during the installation script to enter a product key, click on the 'Skip' box, and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

Microsoft has a record of the PC having been previously upgraded to W10.

[Xinod]

Thanks, I’ll give it a go soon

[mdklassen]

> Right now the machine is not able to pass the OS diagnostic stage, every options fail, even just resetting with or without losing the data, system restore fails for every recovery point.

This could be a problem with a "failing" disk-drive.

If reinstalling Windows does not successfully complete, purchase and connect a new disk-drive.

Your "digital entitlement" to re-install Windows 10 on the "same" computer, at no cost to you, is not lost when you change the disk-drive, thus making it in your mind a "non-same" computer. Microsoft treats it as a "nearly-same" computer, and will activate Windows when you have an Internet connection.

[Xinod]

Thank you, all went well.

I’ve formatted while reinstalling with diskpart clear, I imagine it wiped everything, possible viruses too.

Cheers

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

[mdklassen]

> I’ve formatted with diskpart clear, I imagine it wiped everything, possible viruses too.

Not really "wiped", but "made much more difficult to access".

Compare to having a book of recipes, with a Table Of Contents at the front.

The "clear" is comparable to removing those pages of the Table of Contents, and replacing just those pages with "blank" pages.

All the recipes still exist exactly on the pages where they previously existed, but you need to inspect every page, to find a specific recipe, or a specific virus.

On your disk-drive, you can do a "forensic" search, to inspect every block, to examine the contents of each block.

However, if you replace ALL the recipe-pages with blank pages, all the recipes truly are gone (to the trash).

On your disk-drive, if you do a "long" format, not a "quick" format, any block containing a virus has been totally overwritten, by "zero" values.  Caution: certain USA agencies (think DOD, FBI, CIA) probably have software/hardware tools to recover the data "under" those "zero" values -- the DOD has a procedure to FIVE times do an "erase", to really be sure that the data is gone.

On your disk-drive, since the Table of Contents is now "empty", all the blocks on the disk-drive have been tagged as "unassigned". As needed, Windows will select a block, write something onto that block (overwriting what previously  existed on that block), and will update the Table of Contents.

Not exactly what you "imagined". Correct?