Windows version & product key , bad HDD HP X360

[Blkmgc]

Hello,

   I helping a friend with his HP laptop model X360, Model 14t-ba000. Upon Boot up, The HDD will not respond giving the message " The selected boot device failed".  This laptop is no longer under warranty. As such I removed the HDD and tried accessing it via a HDD USB 2.0 adapter on one of my test machines. The HDD would spin up, but the data was corrupt or inaccessible. I have no issues swapping out the HDD for an upgraded SSD , but as I cannot access windows and this laptop has no product key label on it anywhere that I can find, and he did not create any backup SW for it, I need to get the windows version and product key  for this machine so he does not have to purchase windows again (trying to save him some money as he's out of work ATM). Is there a way to do that? Or is there a way to possibly download  recovery SW for this and retrieve or restore this HDD?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The W10 product key is in the BIOS of the PC.

You do not need it to reinstall W10.

W10 will automatically find the key and install the version of W10 the key is good for (Home or Pro).

That model series should be supported by the HP cloud recovery tool which you can use to create a bootable USB recovery drive that will reinstall W10, the drivers and the software that originally came with the notebook.

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

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool (Windows 10, 7) | HP® Customer Support

[Blkmgc]

Thank you for that.  I tried the recovery media supplied from the HP Cloud recovery tool. It looked like it was loading Windows, flashed what appeared to be a couple cmd panels, then gave me the error : "This computer is not supported by the System Recovery Media  . You will not be able to continue to recover this system with these media".

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

If the cloud recovery tool media didn't work, you can use the W10 media creation tool to create a bootable USB installer from the link below.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

After W10 has completed installing, you can install the drivers and available software from the PC's support page.

HP Pavilion x360 - 14t-ba000 CTO Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support

[Blkmgc]

That did the trick . Thank you kindly.  Its up and running with the old HDD , just need to finish up instaling the drivers. Cheers!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.