Dear folks,
I just bought a Dell 8500 and it came with Win 8 installed on the HD. My plan was to install an SSD (which I have) to use as my boot drive, and to put Win 7 on it (because I had assumed, wrongly, that a piece of hardware I owned didn't have Win 8 drivers). Then the machine came and while initially I kind of hated Win 8 in the past day or two of playing around with it I've decided I like it after all (this after ordering Win 7 from Amazon, which will get here today for me to install -- I'll see if I can return it unopened if I get the right answer here).
So... I know how to install Win 7 onto an SSD without the install disks, from this link:
How to Install Windows 7 Without the Disc | PCWorld
which I did with my old Dell (using my Win 7 serial number) but it doesn't work with Win 8 because there's no Digital River download of the Win 8 ISO that I can find so I can't do the same thing with this Dell and the serial number they've provided. I know there's a "restore" partition on the HD from the Dell, but I don't think that will help me get Win 8 installed on the SSD (if I'm wrong someone can correct me here). I don't want to clone or otherwise do anything than a clean install if I can help it.
On another forum someone in a similar situation got the answer to download the Win 8 trial and then use their serial number -- is this what I should try? I also think I can get a disk from Dell but I *think* that's just another restore disk and not a complete Win 8 install disk.
TIA for any help.
EDIT:
Ah, a quick look around and I can't even *find* a trial of Win 8 (at least on the Microsoft site).
Now I'm feeling a little doomed.
I just bought a Dell 8500 and it came with Win 8 installed on the HD. My plan was to install an SSD (which I have) to use as my boot drive, and to put Win 7 on it (because I had assumed, wrongly, that a piece of hardware I owned didn't have Win 8 drivers). Then the machine came and while initially I kind of hated Win 8 in the past day or two of playing around with it I've decided I like it after all (this after ordering Win 7 from Amazon, which will get here today for me to install -- I'll see if I can return it unopened if I get the right answer here).
So... I know how to install Win 7 onto an SSD without the install disks, from this link:
How to Install Windows 7 Without the Disc | PCWorld
which I did with my old Dell (using my Win 7 serial number) but it doesn't work with Win 8 because there's no Digital River download of the Win 8 ISO that I can find so I can't do the same thing with this Dell and the serial number they've provided. I know there's a "restore" partition on the HD from the Dell, but I don't think that will help me get Win 8 installed on the SSD (if I'm wrong someone can correct me here). I don't want to clone or otherwise do anything than a clean install if I can help it.
On another forum someone in a similar situation got the answer to download the Win 8 trial and then use their serial number -- is this what I should try? I also think I can get a disk from Dell but I *think* that's just another restore disk and not a complete Win 8 install disk.
TIA for any help.
EDIT:
Ah, a quick look around and I can't even *find* a trial of Win 8 (at least on the Microsoft site).
Now I'm feeling a little doomed.
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Win 8