Windows 7 lost product key

[BWasson]

After having hard drive issues (blue screen of death), I replaced the hard drive and installed windows 8 pro on my laptop. After a week of having issues with the mouse and reinstalling the driver software for USB mouse and mousepad several times, I contacted Microsoft support. After a few hours of trying to pinpoint the issue microsoft support informed me that my PC was not compatible with windows 8 due to not having driver software updates for windows 8. I was informed to reinstall windows 7. My computer came originally with windows 7 home premium OS. My problem is I cannot make out the product key on the sticker on the bottom of the computer and since the hard drive was replaced the product key is no longer in the system either. Microsoft told me to contact HP support for assistance in recovering the product key. Please help

[WAWood]

@BWasson

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

As often seems to be the case, Microsoft is mistaken -- as HP keeps no records of individual Windows product keys associated with individual customers.

However, in some cases, the Win7 product key was embedded into the SLIC table in the PCs BIOS and MIGHT still be recoverable using one of these utilities: 

Download Windows OEM Product Key Tool 1.0.0.1

Showkey - Windows 10 Forums

If not, then you are out of luck and will have to purchase a Win7 license on your own.