product key sticker is damaged

[WhiteKenny]

I recently purchased a TouchSmart 310-1125f all-in-one system at my local thrift store.  I installed an SSD Drive in it but it didn't come with any recovery media so when I installed Windows 10 I was going to use the product key form the sticker on the PC to activate but the last set of characters on the sticker are unreadable.  there is some sort of liquid damage.  I put the original hard drive back in and booted to the HirensPE x64 CD and ran the product key extraction tool but the key it found is nowhere close to the key on the sticker. I tried it anyway and windows would not activate with that key.  the HP Chat won't allow me to contact an agent as the warranty is expired.  Is there any way to recover the product key so I can activate Windows 10 on this system?  Microsoft does still allow Windows 7 keys for Windows 10 activation so I know it should work.  I've done it before with other systems, but I need a complete key in order to do it again.

something else I tried was upgrading the existing Windows 7 install to Windows 10 on the original hard drive, using the Windows Media Creation tool and that worked fine and activated Windows as expected.  I've been told that once this process is done, I can do a clean install on a new drive and Windows will detect the hardware and activate automatically using the existing license but it doesn't seem o be doing that properly.  

[WAWood]

@WhiteKenny 

What you have been told about Win10 reactivation is correct -- in that once a PC is activated with Win10, MS saves that information and you can reinstall Win10 to the same PC and it will reactivate automatically.  But, the new version of Win10 must be the same type (i.e., Home or Proi) as the previously activated version.

Also, it does this online, so it might take a day or two to happen.

[WhiteKenny]

Hi WAWood

Thanks for such a quick response.  I'm reverting back to the original Windows 7 installation again and I'm going to run through the Windows 10 upgrade again and see if I get any better results. I did this initially about 4 or 5 days ago, so I would assume that it should have updated by now.  Also, for matching the edition, the PC has Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed.  When I downloaded the Windows 10 ISO file there was an option to select edition, but the only choice is 'Windows 10'. screenshot linked below.

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What Windows 10 edition does Windows 7 Home Premium translate to?   When it installed, it automatically installed Pro.  I've heard that it defaults to Pro and then adjusts the edition once the key is inserted and activated, but I'm not 100% sure if that is accurate or not.

[WhiteKenny · Accepted solution]

ok, so it appears that I have resolved this issue. this is gonna be kinda detailed in case somebody comes across this issue in the future and needs help figuring it out.

My problem all along seems to have been downloading the Windows 10 ISO file from the Microsoft site and burning that to DVD.  as stated in my earlier post there was no option to select an edition during that download process, so I just figured it would set the edition based on what product key was used.  here's a hint, it does not.

1 of the earlier steps I tried was using the Windows 10 Media Creation tool to upgrade the existing install from Windows 7 to Windows 10 on the original hard drive hoping that after installing on the new SSD that it would just pick up the license and activate it. I guess that partially worked, but the ISO file I downloaded kept installing the pro version so it would never activate the home premium license.  I still had the Media Creation tool so I ran it again, but chose to create USB installation media instead of upgrading the PC and when I booted to the USB drive it FINALLY asked me which edition I wanted to install.  I chose Home and let it install and now it's finally activated.

And, if you need to download the Media Creation tool, you need to do it from a Windows PC.  it took me forever to find it because my main PC is linux and if you go to the Media Creation tool download page on a non-Windows PC it just redirects you to the ISO download page.

[MatheusH]

We are glad that you managed to solve the problem;)

Thank you for describing the procedure performed. Thus, you will be helping other users who have the same
question.

Matheus.H