Reinstalling windows 10 on a newly installed hard drive

[KevAshford]

Hi, 

The hard drive on my laptop has failed, I can replace it simple enough, but my query is how do I reinstall Windows 10 on the new drive? I have no copy and there are no labels on the machine giving me a product key?

TIA

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You can make a bootable W10 USB flash drive by using the media creation tool at the link below.

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

If your notebook came with W10, the product key is in the BIOS and you won't need it to reinstall W10 as long as you select the right version to install when prompted (Home, Pro, single language...).

If you previously upgraded your PC to W10 from an older Windows operating system and you are asked to enter a product key, select the 'I don't have a product key' option, and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

[KevAshford]

Hi Paul,

thanks so much for your reply, I’ll give that a try. I never realised you could make a usb recovery. 

thanks again

kevin

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Kevin.

If you have a newer model notebook made in 2016 or later, you may also have this option to create a bootable recovery drive...

The HP Cloud Recovery Tool.  Here is an info link for how to use that utility...

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