HD crashed with Windows 10 on it - drive unreadable so presume have to buy Windows 10 again?

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lchiu7

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#201591 25-Aug-2016 18:59

A friend had a machine with Windows 7 on it (might have been retail). Anyway it received the free upgrade. However the other day the PC would not boot and the drive looks like it's toast as we tried it in a USB caddy in another machine and it's not recognisable.

Can buy a new drive but I guess now he has to purchase Windows 10? We have no licence information since it was an upgrade and we can't even deactivate it on the old machine.

Pity it didn't happy when Windows 10 upgrades were free :-(

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gbwelly

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#1617531 25-Aug-2016 19:01

It will still activate if only the hard drive is replaced and you reinstall. There will still be enough original hardware to match the entitlement.

Brumfondl

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#1617536 25-Aug-2016 19:11

They have actually taken drives out of the things that they use to work out if the machine can activate so you have no worries :)

Stu

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#1617539 25-Aug-2016 19:13

As above. Replace the drive and do a clean install of the same version of Windows 10 that was on the old drive after the free upgrade. It should automatically activate. If not, phone Microsoft and they'll help you out with activation.

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lchiu7

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#1617581 25-Aug-2016 20:51

I'll try again but I posted separately (HP TouchSmart IQ500) that this machine won't boot from the failed drive but also won't boot from the internal DVD drive either so I can't install Windows on another drive.

I might try again this weekend with the original drive just to see if it might work briefly, enough for me to get the Windows 10 licence off and deactivate it.

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#1617586 25-Aug-2016 20:56

You won't be able to deactivate the licence, as it's firmly tied to that machine. There is no licence number you can take from the old machine to transfer either. You will be able to activate Windows 10 on the same machine with a new drive, without having to enter any licence key.

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coffeebaron

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#1617593 25-Aug-2016 21:35

Can it boot off USB drive?

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lchiu7

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#1617605 25-Aug-2016 22:23

No it can't boot of USB. I just see a flashing cursor when it tries to boot.

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Oblivian

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#1617612 25-Aug-2016 22:35

UEFI security boot options need to be off..

dimsim

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#1617649 26-Aug-2016 07:30

Replace the drive, best to upgrade it to an SSD.

Get a usb thumbdrive, (4GB+ from memory, although i usually use 8gb) and on a working machine, use the Media Creation Tool below to download the correct version of Windows 10 and create thumb drive to install from. (at this stage you can choose either x64 or x86 - when Win7 was upgraded it would have stayed either 32bit or 64bit whatever version Windows 7 was)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

With the machine off, insert the newly create usb stick, Tap the ESC key until the Boot Menu appears. Choose the name of your USB drive and boot from it to start the install process.

When prompted to enter a product key just select skip. Windows will activate once installed and connected to the internet.

lchiu7

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#1617653 26-Aug-2016 07:44

That was my plan but once I installed the SSD drive it would not boot from a DVD or USB. Not sure I saw the UEFI option in the BIOS since it's an older machine but worth checking.

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Sideface

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#1617666 26-Aug-2016 08:40

lchiu7: That was my plan but once I installed the SSD drive it would not boot from a DVD or USB. Not sure I saw the UEFI option in the BIOS since it's an older machine but worth checking.

The HP TouchSmart IQ500 is a low-spec 2008 model.
8 years is a good working life.
The new SSD probably costs more than the unit is worth.
Is it worth all this time and effort?

/Devils Advocate

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lchiu7

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#1617669 26-Aug-2016 08:48

I have a 120G SSD lying around so the effort is really my time. And the touch feature, large screen and built in DVD-T tuner are nice extra features.

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Stu

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#1617680 26-Aug-2016 09:18

If it's an old BIOS, you should still be able to change the boot order. This might be across two settings.

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coffeebaron

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#1617696 26-Aug-2016 09:25

lchiu7: No it can't boot of USB. I just see a flashing cursor when it tries to boot.

Either way, you will need to find some way to boot of the DVD or USB to bring this back to life. Have a good play with the BIOS settings. I've had the odd trick device to reload before too.

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lchiu7

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#1618443 27-Aug-2016 19:44

Well it's all solved now. Turned out that the USB dongle to support the Wireless keyboard was faulty and was causing the USB ports to fail. That's why the machine was always hanging on startup. There was no UEFI option in the BIOS - machine too old. Once I removed the dongle I was able to get into setup, change the boot order and go.

Anyway slotted in a 120GB Samsung SSD, downloaded the Windows 10 ISO and got the machine to boot and install from that ISO. I presume it's the 1 year anniversary version as it looks slightly different to what I am running.

Windows 10 installed fine, it activated (as others had noted it should given all I had done was change the drive) and even better, found drivers for everything including the SD card reader, Bluetooth, WiFi, 1394 port, touch screen etc. I am impressed. So despite somebody in the thread saying it was too old, the SSD and Windows 10 have made this quite a snappy machine for general surfacing etc and the large screen is very nice.

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