Windows 10: How to get Win10 media on a replacement hard drive--no recovery usb available?

My hard drive failed. I have file history backups, but I don't believe it includes the OS. I have a recovery drive from another PC, but it does not complete the recovery. How can I get WIN10 media on my new hard drive? It is an HP Pavilion that was purchased with pre-installed OS in 12/2016.

:)

 

Won't boot after Win10 recovery

Thanks for the reply.

I downloaded the Win10 Media Creation Tool and selected "Create installation media for another PC", using a USB thumb drive. Tried plugging it into the Toshiba ultrabook and got the same result - nothing after the splash screen. (The hard drive light continues
for a minute or so after the blank screen, then stops.)

Decided to try the steps listed under "Create a bootable copy on a blank DVD or USB thumb drive". I re-formatted the thumb drive. Downloaded the .iso file, right-clicked on it, selected "Burn Disk Image", but the thumb drive wasn't an option. It appeared
to be looking for a DVD drive or nothing.

I appreciate all of your suggestions, but I'm still stuck. I almost think I'd need to buy a new hard drive with Win10 already installed and try replacing the hard drive in the ultrabook. Probably won't do that, though, since my goal is to contribute it
somewhere it's needed and wouldn't want to sink the extra money into it to do so.

Any other ideas?

 

Win10 on new hard drive, how to activate

• Installed Win10 to new hard drive, but Win7 code does not work.
• Tried online (slui.exe 4) activation:
  • entered numeric codes online - which failed,
  • talked to 1st line tech who entered Win7 code - did not work,
  • transferred me to 2nd line tech and no one came on the phone line after 2.5 hours.

Win7 was pre-installed on HP computer with no media provided and HP support has no process to supply replacement media or ISO (last HP purchase). Tried to install Win7 to new drive using Recovery Disks I created, but it could not find system image.

Not willing to return to old hard drive as the new one has SSD and is at least 3 (7?) times faster.

QUESTION 1: Is my only option now to buy either Win7 or Win10?

QUESTION 2: Without activation, when will Win10 no longer boot? If 12 months, I can retry online activation later.

 

Cannot create recovery drive or bootable usb using media creation tool

Hi Stuart,

To assist you better with your concern, are you getting an error message upon creating a recovery drive, as well as creating a bootable USB drive? If yes, what's the error message?

In addition to that, have you tried the steps from the following articles:

• Create Windows 10 installation media.
• Create a recovery drive.

Regards.