Windows 10: Hard drive totally fried - Can I still salvage my win 10 key?

My hard drive on my other PC is totally fried. There's no backup (nothing much to save on there). I'm going to have to do a clean install on a new hard drive and all I have is my old windows 7 key. Is it going to let me activate windows 10 without any trouble?

:)

 

Windows 10 Upgrade

well i'm one of those people that my asus cg1330 has no options for win 10 yet Via pc manufacturer,and there's no driver for the hd audio deck for VIA...so yes some drivers are missing,i've done a clean install of win 10 from win 7 and it fried my hard
drive,i now have a new hard drive with win 7 until asus comes up with drivers and updates for memory management errors ,watchdog errors,bsod,errors ......but ty for the better understanding...

 

how to reinstall Win10 after a crash and new hardware.

Originally I bought Win 8 later upgraded to 8.1 and eventually to 10. My computer got fried, so have a new motherboard, processor and hard disk, how do I go about installing Windows 10? I did not save the key and my old hard drive got wiped out in the crash.

Thanks

 

If you have activated 10 before, Windows will remember it, there is no need to enter key anymore.
In the future, link your licence to MS account, it will make it easier in case of serious hardware failures.

Microsoft Account - Link to Digital License on Windows 10 PC - Windows 10 Forums

 

But I'm doing a clean install on a totally new hard drive. Windows will still be able to recognize that I've activated win 10 on this PC before?

 

Yes, MS has copied your hardware info before, if you would be replacing motherboard, that would be more problematic.

 

Thank you, one last question. I plan on downloading an ISO for the anniversary update and burning it to a DVD and installing from there. Will it ask for a key during installation?

 

No. But make sure to download the correct version.

 

Actually I think it will ask- but you can select Skip or 'I don't have a key' to get past it, and it should still activate OK.

 

First version from 2015 used to ask, but I have never seen it afterwards, maybe it depends on the version.

 

Actually, yes - but you don't need to give if your previous installation had been activate. You DO have to be careful to install the same version as you had previously though. If you had 'Home' or 'Pro' your activation is only valid for a clean install of the same edition. You'll see a screen like this...



...just select 'I don't have a product key'. Once installed you should find it has be activated automatically using your previous digital licence.

 

The above posts are correct.

Went through this myself today with my sons laptop. New Hdd fitted and restored from the recovery partition to Win 8 Home.

I completely updated it to 8.1.1 and downladed Win 10 using the media creation tool.

To make it more nerve wracking, I created a new microsoft account and used that as part of the installation - rather than a local account. Everything worked perfectly - fully activated and he can add his original log in details at a leter date.

p.s - skipped past the licence box. It gave the option of reinstalling a previous installation of Win 10

 

"restored from the recovery partition to Win 8 Home.
I completely updated it to 8.1.1 and downloaded Win 10 using the media creation tool."

I had someone give me a brand new Windows 8 desktop sitting in a closet for almost 3 yrs, just 5 days before the free Windows 10 upgrade when his old Vista computer's HDD crashed. I did no updates to it, at all, not even to 8.1. Downloaded the Windows 10 ISO to the desktop, mounted and ran with no problems. Repeated process a week later for 10 Anniv and all is well. He's slowly learning 10 after trying to avoid a new OS but now loving it.

 

If you clean install it asks for it unless product key is embedded in bios.