help recover product key

After replacing hard drive in my dell 5040 laptop it wont activate. Can't read label on bottom and all the product key finders return the default key which cant be used to activate. Contacted dell who sent me recovery media for windows 8, which can install windows 7 if you have installation disc and product key. Windows pre-loaded and no discs came with the purchase. Downloaded the software from digital river but it still would not activate and am now getting not geniune message. Contacted microsoft to activate by phone but they wanted me to pay $60 dollars to fix problem or to upgrade to windows 8. I have tried buying replacement key but all the legitimate window 7 key links are dead and lead to windows 8 purchases.

Can someone please help me either find a way to recover my key or tell me where I can buy a legitimate windows 7 key (without the software).

christieb said:

After replacing hard drive in my dell 5040 laptop it wont activate. Can't read label on bottom and all the product key finders return the default key which cant be used to activate. Contacted dell who sent me recovery media for windows 8, which can install windows 7 if you have installation disc and product key. Windows pre-loaded and no discs came with the purchase. Downloaded the software from digital river but it still would not activate and am now getting not geniune message. Contacted microsoft to activate by phone but they wanted me to pay $60 dollars to fix problem or to upgrade to windows 8. I have tried buying replacement key but all the legitimate window 7 key links are dead and lead to windows 8 purchases.

Can someone please help me either find a way to recover my key or tell me where I can buy a legitimate windows 7 key (without the software).

Yep, the Digital River software is legitimate, but you still need a Product Key from the sticker on the PC, which is apparently illegible in your case.

You can buy Windows 7 Home Premium here for $90, which includes the DVD.

Windows 7, Windows 7 Home, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate at TigerDirect.com

I assume you no longer have your original hard drive in working condition?

I'm not absolutely positive, but I don't think that Product Key shown on your sticker is contained anywhere in the original installation and therefore a Product Key finder would do you no good. All they would recover is the key Dell used to mass-activate at the time of manufacture---which of course is a different key than the one appearing on the sticker.

After months of calls and texts between myself, Dell and Microsoft and numerous re-installations using the software they sent without success I have finally solved this problem. Many thanks to all those who post in this forum (and others) who enabled me to solve this problem. When reading through forums it was suggested that my dell data safe/restore drive might be missing/invisible. The solution was to download a mini partition software, repartitioned the drive and re-installed dell data safe/restore. At the end of the restoration it automatically activated and everything is now running fine.

Well from start to finish- hard drive on dell went replaced with new hard drive but had no disc etc from dell because operation system pre-installed. Downloaded the same windows 7 version from digital river and installed that, then logged into dell account and installed drivers etc from them. After month started getting message to activate win 7. contacted dell, after weeks of back and forth and trying the steps they suggested they sent me a dell usb repair stick for windows 8 which apparently you can use along with the digital river win 7 download to re-install the software. The repair disk was supposed to enable my computer to access the win 7 key in the bios and automatically activate. It didn't. So was back and forth with dell who told me activate by phone, which I tried but the only key I could recover (using key finder) was the dell default key which can not be used to activate according to Microsoft customer support. Product label was worn and couldn't see the key on it. They were willing to fix this problem so my windows would be activated for a fee of $60 dollars. In one of the forums (can remember which) it was suggested the dell data safe/restore drive was either not being detected or was missing and that was why the key in the bios was not automatically activating when using the repair disks. There was link for minitool partition wizard which I download and when ran it showed a recovery drive, so I used the tool to reformat the drive and copied the dell data safe restore files back onto it then reinstalled everything using the windows usb stick and the digital river win 7 download (iso to dvd) and it worked, I wasn't asked for product key, it automatically activated and is all working fine. Which is what should have happened the first time I re-installed the software not the 7 or 8th. I have uploaded the MGA but now that everything is fixed I don't know if it will be any good.