If I replace a dead hard drive will windows 10 reinstall itself and find the original product key

[pgdriver]

Another dead hard drive. Bought two HP computers for our grand kids. Computer 1 hard drive failed after 8 months had it repaired under warranty. Computer 2 now has a dead hard drive after 17 months. My question is after I replace the hard drive, how do I get Windows 10 back on there. Can I use computer 1 to make a boot disk and use that on computer 2. They are identical computers. Will the Windows 10 product key in the bios let me reinstall Windows on computer 2. Not too worried about data from the dead hard drive as they just play games with them.

[Huffer]

If the two computers are identical a restore disk made on one will work on the other. If not you can go to the Microsoft Media Creation Tools site and make a Windows 10 only recovery disk and it will detect your credentials and reactivate Windows 10 without the need for any kind of Key Code. The other same model computer will have drivers and HP apps stored on it which you can pull off and reinstall on the one with the new drive. Good chance at this point to go for a solid state drive if you only have a mechanical HDD. 

Post back with any more questions and please accept as solution if this is the info you needed. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @pgdriver 

You can use the HP cloud recovery client utility to make a bootable recovery drive.

Here is an info link for how to use the utility.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

It will work on both models if they are the same.

I just did the same thing on two HP 255 G7 notebooks.