Have an HP Pavilion p7-1439 tower. The hard drive has gone bad so I have to buy a new one. I also have no reinstall media from HP, although I do have several W8 disks, two of which I downloaded from links supplied by this forum.
If I pop in a new drive will I be prompted for a product key? Of course W8 no longer has the COA sticker with the 25 character key. Since it's now embedded in the BIOS I have no clue what the key is.
HP wants to charge me $63.55 for reinstallation media which would be a flash drive, not a disk. If I can't use any of my non-HP W8 disks I have to consider whether this is worth the price of a new HDD + the HP media.
If I pop in a new drive will I be prompted for a product key? Of course W8 no longer has the COA sticker with the 25 character key. Since it's now embedded in the BIOS I have no clue what the key is.
HP wants to charge me $63.55 for reinstallation media which would be a flash drive, not a disk. If I can't use any of my non-HP W8 disks I have to consider whether this is worth the price of a new HDD + the HP media.