HP Notebook - 15-da0596sa Windows Code

[Alam122]

My wifes laptop recently died when I was away on a vacation. She took it to a shop who said th hard drive has failed
It had a 1TB HDD which had all the data
I am now replacing it with a SDD which I have fitted on the slot; however I face 2 problems
1)Getting the product key of the Windows 10 that came with the laptop
It is not written down anywhere
I have the recovery key on a usb, but it does not boot up on that
2)Tring to recove the lost data from the 1TB HDD, which I gather one can try using a software similar AMOLED My recover, which is free only upto 500mb, but the paid version can do without limits
Any advise on the bootup and getting back the Windows (Reg no)that came with the laptop would be helpful
MS site has a Windows 10 version for a bootable usb/CD iso which I can download and install it

[BeemerBiker · Accepted solution]

Microsoft has a record of the serial number needed to activate windows.  Just be sure to install the correct version, either Home or Pro.

Have you or your wife log into their Microsoft account and find out if you own Home or Pro

Since you are probably doing a clean install you may want to put in windows 11.

Reference this article. Windows 11 can be easily installed on just about any windows 7, 8 or 10 system as an upgrade.

I have run it on some really old HP systems with no problem.

Have you created a backup?
Can you pass diagnostics?
Tap the ESC key after powering on and press F2 to run diagnostics.
Do not allow any updates if disk or memory fail, especially a BIOS update.

For a new system that has UEFI bios and GPT but does not meet all requirements, Windows 11 can be installed using the Rufus trick.

Get Rufus here

Download Windows 11 with this link and use an 8gb or larger USB.
The windows 10 license will work fine.

Configure Rufus to use UEFI boot and select the option that creates a local account
so as to avoid the Microsoft email login. Use options shown below:


Uncheck the "Set regional options" if you are creating the USB on another system that has a different OS than yours.
Do not install 11 Pro if you are licensed for 10 Home.

To do a clean install then boot the USB else just insert it and find and run "setup"

You have to click "start" before those options show up.

If you do an upgrade you may not need to hunt for HP drivers. if you do a clean install of 10 or 11 then your Product ID can be used to find missing drivers.

Your drivers are here

[Alam122]

Thank you for this clear advise, which I was chewing on the best way forward 

I did a rufus win 11 installation boot usb, and we with some minor hiccup it went through installing windows 11 without asking for the code, it installed latest updates ..so we are good to go 

Next project I have is to try get the data out of the blank but working hard disk using one of the data retrieval softwares, which Google tells me My recover from amoled is the good way to go. Costs around 50£ but may be worth the expenses for the previous accumulated data ( photos , videos, documents, memories etc)..