What do I need for a complete reinstall of W 8.0

This is my 1st post, and you folks will think I'm completely nuts. - Here goes - I have a Toshiba c55 laptop at home with W8.0 (Preinstalled, No Disks) on it. The laptop has 4gb ram and 500 gb HD. It works perfectly!! 4 months old. I don't use this laptop for anything and don't have any data, favorites etc., on it. Just a lot of crap that was included with the laptop.

I have made a recovery usb of the system in case of any problems later.

What I want to do is try Linux out on this machine. I don't want a dual boot or other complicated stuff. I want to reformat the laptop HD, remove windows 8 and all the crapware off of it and install the Linux distro. What I want to know is what will I need to re install w8 later on. I don't have any W8 disks since it was preinstalled on the system. I do have the W8 product key number and the recovery disk, will that be enough?? If anyone has some suggestions they would be most welcomed - Tks in advance, David

The easiest is to image the whole disk to an external HD using back up software such as: Macrium Reflect Free
so you can restore back to the state it's in now.

1. Download Macrium Reflect Free
2. Install Macrium and create a USB rescue disk
3. Run Macrium and Image the disk to an external HD.
4. Format and install Linux
5. Once done with Linux, Boot your PC using the USB rescue disk then restore from the backup image.

NOTE: The image only contains Windows OS and any data on the HD so it would be smaller than the disk capacity.

Why would you want to scrap Win8. A much easier approach would be to run Linux in Virtual. Here is how I do it.

An even esier option is to run it from a USB flash drive. Here is how.

Why would you want to scrap Windows 8

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Maybe he doesn't like it. Seems he just wants to be able to get back to factory in case he needs to call on warranty/sell it, etc.

Some people want linux as the os, not as something temporaray from a usb stick/vm. Anything is better than 8.

I don't know. I run Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and several Linux distros (and Android on my Nexus). I like all of them. There is always something interesting and unique in each system. I think it is ashame if members do not use the opportunity to explore all the possibilities of each system.

It's not Windows (Vista, 7 or 8) what makes those laptops nowadays "useless", it's all the spam and bloatware, what comes with it. That's why first thing I do, I create the recovery stick (just in case), wipe out the original hard drive and install plain Windows.

Hi guys, You've all been helpful and I did make an image backup of my whole laptop harddrive (About 25gbs total). Please don't get me wrong I do like W8.1 and this linux thing is just a temporary thing (My spelling is terrible). I'm a senior citizen with too much time on my hands and like fooling around with my systems and trying new stuff. My main concern is I want to reinstall W8.1 probably week after next but without all the bloatware!! You can believe how much crap is on my system preinstalled by TOSHIBA!!!

If I download just a ISO of windows 8.0, can I use my product key to install that on my laptop? - Tks for all help - David

The Windows 8 product key is in the BIOS.

david navratil said:

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If I download just a ISO of windows 8.0, can I use my product key to install that on my laptop? - Tks for all help - David

Click to expand...

If you can get the "right version" of Windows 8 or 8.1 on DVD or USB, then you can use your product key. Often it will automatically activate and not even ask for the product key.