Old Win 7 machine upgraded to Win 10 and lost OS

[Cherivonne]

Hi, bear with me as I'm not the most techie person but I get by.  I have an old machine that came with Win 7.  I upgraded to Win 10 during the free period.  Don't ask why but I wiped it so well that it wiped my OS too.  Now I have a blank HD.  

I have the product key from Win 10 but no disk.  How can I load Win 10 back on my machine - Will HP give me a disk?

Thanks

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Using another working Windows PC, you can reinstall W10 for free by making a bootable W10 installation flash drive using the media creation tool at the link below.

Select the 64 bit media to create.

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

If you are asked to enter a product key during the installation process, select the 'I don't have a product key' option, and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

[Cherivonne]

Well, that worked and I already had a bootable W10 installation thumb drive from my newer machine.  BUT, it restored the old machine to exactly where my new machine was when I created the thumb drive a year ago, including all files.

What is the best way to wipe the HD so that I can sell this machine?  I used DBAN and that's what got me into this mess because it wiped my OS.  I'm using the W10 option right now to wipe all files.  Is that secure enough?

Thanks for your help!

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

The next time you go to install W10, when you get to the part that asks 'Where do you want to install Windows,' delete every partition on the hard drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space.

Click next, and W10 should install.

I also suggest that you make the W10 media using the info I posted, because doing it that way absolutely none of your previous info/files should be showing up on the PC.

It should just be a plain W10 installation where you have to set everything up from scratch.

Instead of setting things up, just press and hold the power button to shut down the PC, and the next person can boot it up and set it up with their user info.

[Cherivonne]

Wow, fantastic!!  This is such great information to have and it all worked perfectly.  Thank you again!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.