Reinstalling Windows 10 OS after Replacing Hard Drive

[Aris379]

Hello, I purchased a HP Pavilion laptop last year for work and school. It has run perfectly up until yesterday when it froze unexpectedly. I waited for about half an hour to see if it might work itself out, as I had several programs running at once. With no results, I performed a hard shut down and left it off for about two hours. Upon attempting to turn it back on, I was stuck on the HP boot screen for nearly an hour. I turned off the power and tried again. Sometimes I would get stuck on the boot screen, and sometimes it would show that it was preparing automatic repair, then the screen would go blank. Also, the system recovery menu through the F11 key was not functioning, so I did a System Quick Test and received a Hard Drive Short DST failure. 

I plan to purchase a replacement HGST 5K1000 1TB hard Drive from the manufacturer; however, my warranty expired last month, and I'm unsure how to reinstall the OS, (factory installed with Windows 8.1 then upgraded to Windows 10), once the new hard drive is in place. 

I never made an HP System Recovery Image, and I'm low on funds, so I'm unable to contact HP directly. Please help. I'm a student and I work from home, so I'm at a loss without without my system. 

[TheOldMan · Accepted solution]

If you wish to reinstall Windows 10, then that is the easy part and free.  From what I understand, once the upgrade to Windows 10 was completed, then you can clean install Windows 10 from the M$ site.

On a working computer, go to the WINDOWS 10 DOWNLOAD, scroll down to the purple "Download Tool Now -64Bit"  click on that at let it do its thing.  Then on the next screen, pick " Create installation media for another PC", and then which media you wish to use DVD or USB flash.  Once that is created, install Windows 10 on the PC in question - when all done it is activated.

[WAWood]

There is a "catch" regarding the reinstallation of Win10, if you used the free Upgrade version.

This version does NOT use product keys for activation, instead, it generates a hardware hash of the upgraded PC and uses that.  This allows for reinstallations of Win10 to the same PC, later, without having to deal with reactivation.

The "catch" is that the initial activation is done automatically as part of the initial upgrade, and in some cases, it is NOT done immediately.  It has been known to take as long as two days, due to the Activation servers being overloaded and unable to respond in a timely manner.

If you to a reinstall BEFORE that activation take place, not only will Win10 NOT activate, in fact, it will NEVER activate.  The "solution" that Microsoft publishes for this activation problem is that you have to do the in-place upgrade all over again!  And, wait for the activation to take place.  Sorry, but that's how it works now.

[Aris379]

Thank you so much for that information. That is what I was worried about. My new hard drive came in and -THANKFULLY- I didn't have any issues and everything is activated and running smoothly. 🙂

[WAWood]

Great, so please click the thumbs-up symbol to mark the thread so others will see it.  thanks

[Fuad_aj]

Will this option work now, ie. after the free upgrade period? My HDD just crashed and I am going to replace my HDD. I was using Win 10 for the past 8 months. My Laptop was shipped initially with Win 7/8. Will I be able to use the download method and activate Win 10?

[TheOldMan]

Yes, once Windows 10 has been installed and activated, it can be reinstalled with the media and it will use the hardware hash-code it used in the first install.  As long as nothing was changed hardware wise, except the hard drive.

[Fuad_aj]

Thank you very much. I received the new HDD and reinstalled Windows 10. Its activated now.

[timmer0823]

Hey Old Man, you just saved me $120!   THANKS!!  Simple instructions and tested perfectly. 

[Dave22fair]

Hi, I have a HP Pavilion G6-1202sa with 500Gb HDD and Windows 10 OS.  I have been getting messages for a few weeks warning me that the HDD has faults and might fail.  I've run the usual checks on the drive but cannot find anything to fix, so have made the decision to buy a bigger 1Tb drive and replace before it does fail.  The OS is working fine, but I understand it is advisable to do a fresh install of Windows 10 on the new drive when I have installed it empty into the laptop, and will this mess up user settings?  What is the best/easiest process I should follow?

Thanks, Dave