Windows 8 Reinstall help

VPALLARI

New Member
Messages
4
Ill start with a high level list of events and fill in gaps if need be. Bascially here is the deal.

- I bought an ASUS 15 inch touch screen with windows 8 approx 18 months ago referbed off ebay.
- For the most part it has been running fine since then
- had a situation where i was trying to install some software for my daughter while also doing a million other things.
- computer crashed mid install and wouldnt boot
- over the next couple days, again, while trying to do a million other things, I rushed through every trick Ive ever learned

- Initially, was a bit perplexed since safemode wouldnt boot...ive never seen that.
- Long story short, I tried every possible option windows 8 recover would let me try....repair, reinstall, dos commands for chkdsk, fsc, koppix. Esentially NOTHING would complete.

- Lastly, I created a usb reparid disk from microsoft and tried to reinstall windows 8 and, I think, completely hosed the machine.

I dont really care about saving anything on the machine. I have the Windows 8 reinstall USB up and running and have been able to get to a point where I think I can through the Advanced install and just install windows. Which brings me to my question. Im currently at the "Where do you want to install windows" screen and its showing that I have 7 partitions
here are the types:

1) System
2) Recovery
3) MSR(reserved)
4) Primary
5-7) Recovery

If I want a clean install of Windows 8 from USB,
1) Which partitions should I delete??

2) Which ones should I format??

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
How to download and clean install Windows 8.1 if you have an OEM computer with UEFI firmware (BIOS) embedded Windows 8/8.1 product key. -> link
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo G580
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-3230M
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD Graphics 4000
    Browser
    Microsoft Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender, standard user account
    Other Info
    UEFI firmware (BIOS) embedded Windows 8 product key.
HDD hosed

So, as it turns out, the hard drive is hosed. I banged at this thing from every angle....I even got it up and running and upgraded to windows 10, believe it or not. However, within an hour windows was chugging again and complaining about HD failures. things quickly went back to where they started. Not able to boot, repaire mode was inconsistant, recovery off the usb was iffy. I created a new Windows 10 recovery on for the USB, tried to do a clean install. I deleted all the partitions wih the exception of the MRS partition. When I tried to reinstall windows basically said no because the disk is bad.

Any suggestions on replacing the harddrive? My biggest concern is the lack of windows product key. its stored in the bios, but after I upgraded to windows and tired to reinstall it asked for it. there was a "remind me later" link that got me past, but Im hoping that I didnt hose that when i deleted the partitions.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
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