Restore to HDD from System Image Backup

[TChalms]

The Pavilion 15-cs1063cl laptop has 16GB Optane Memory, 8GB RAM, and a 1 TB HDD.  

It came with Windows 10 Home, but I paid Microsoft $99 for the Pro upgrade so that I could join this laptop to a domain.

The laptop was working great for several months.

I thought it would be a good idea to make a System Image backup (using the Windows 7 Backup in Windows 10).

A month later, the HDD would not boot.

I had a Chat session with HP support, they determined that the HDD failed and we made arrangements to ship the laptop to HP for repairs.

When the laptop returned, it has a new HDD with Windows 10 Home and it works great, but I want Win10Pro so I can join it to the domain again.

I have booted into the System Recovery environment, and it recognizes the System Image on the USB backup drive, but it can't find the HDD to do the restore. I think it is seeing the Optane memory instead of the 1TB drive.

How do I restore the System Image to the 1TB drive?

Do I disable the Optane memory in UEFI and if so, what is the right way to do that?

Thanks,

Tearing out hair in Oregon.

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

I don't know.

My 'GOTO' in this instance would be.........

Hi

ShowKeyPlus from the Microsoft Store (probably the best choice).
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/showkeyplus/9pkvzcprx9nv?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

The output is like this....
ShowKeyPlus - Windows Product Key Information

Product Name: Windows 10 Home
Version: 12345.678 (64-bit OS)
Product ID: 00000-00000-00000-AAOEM
Installed Key: 12345-67890-09876-54321
OEM Key: MICRO-SOFTY-WINDO-WSTEN-64BIT
OEM Edition: Win 10 RTM Core OEM:DM


ALSO
KeyFinderInstaller may help.…
https://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/
It gives this…. – CD Key: 12345-67890-09876-54321

ELSE
There is a possibility of finding the same value in the Registry....
USING RegEdit the key is listed below and it’s content also shown.
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform

BackupProductKeyDefault 12345-67890-09876-54321

Three different names for the same value in 3 different software methods.

Although you may already have the Licence Key from Microsoft.

Turn off Microsoft Windows Fast Startup.

Then a "Live" version of Linux Mint which can mount all sorts of volumes and have a look.

You can use Gparted to view the entire HDD and check partitions, perhaps even unhide some, temporarily.

There is the possibility that the replacement HDD has none of the old data on it.

[TChalms]

Thanks for the reply. That will come in handy if I can get the backed up system image restored to the new HDD.

Cheers,

Still Tearing out hair in Oregon,

TC