MARKakaJIM
New Member
- Messages
- 2
I recently suffered a hard drive failure on my laptop, which is about 18 months old give or take a few, and now i'm struggling to get Windows 8 reinstalled onto the new hard drive so can get my laptop back up and running properly.
Originally i tried using my mom's Windows 7 laptop, only other 64 bit machine available, to download a Windows 8 ISO and then create myself some boot media from there but didn't have a product key to get past the first step. So i abandoned that approach and got myself an ISO for Windows 8 Enterprise edition, created a boot disc for that and successfully installed that onto my laptop so i didn't have to keep borrowing my mom's to get this problem sorted.
Now though i'm unable to either re-activate the Enterprise edition with my original product key that i've extracted from the BIOS, as some websites suggested i could, or just install a bonafide version of Windows 8 over the top.
When i've tried to install the full version of Windows 8 from a downloaded installer i get one of two messages, depending on which product key i try to use. If i use my original OEM key then i get the message saying i can't use that key on a retail version of Windows 8, if i use a generic key from your website's guide then i get an error about not being able to connect to the internet, apparently because they blocked the generic codes.
So that leaves me in something of a bind, what other options do i have to try and get a full version of Windows 8 back onto my laptop? It seems neither product key i have access to are compatible with the only installer i can get my hands on.
Surely it should be easier than this to reinstall software that i already own?!
Originally i tried using my mom's Windows 7 laptop, only other 64 bit machine available, to download a Windows 8 ISO and then create myself some boot media from there but didn't have a product key to get past the first step. So i abandoned that approach and got myself an ISO for Windows 8 Enterprise edition, created a boot disc for that and successfully installed that onto my laptop so i didn't have to keep borrowing my mom's to get this problem sorted.
Now though i'm unable to either re-activate the Enterprise edition with my original product key that i've extracted from the BIOS, as some websites suggested i could, or just install a bonafide version of Windows 8 over the top.
When i've tried to install the full version of Windows 8 from a downloaded installer i get one of two messages, depending on which product key i try to use. If i use my original OEM key then i get the message saying i can't use that key on a retail version of Windows 8, if i use a generic key from your website's guide then i get an error about not being able to connect to the internet, apparently because they blocked the generic codes.
So that leaves me in something of a bind, what other options do i have to try and get a full version of Windows 8 back onto my laptop? It seems neither product key i have access to are compatible with the only installer i can get my hands on.
Surely it should be easier than this to reinstall software that i already own?!
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8
- Computer type
- Laptop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Sony Vaio SVE14AJ15M
- Browser
- Firefox