Is there anyway to get back to windows 7 without windows.old folder

Hi, I hope i'm posting this in the correct section.
I need help finding a way to downgrade back to windows 7 from windows 10 without the windows.old folder. I've looked everywhere and can't find anything. I pirated a copy of windows 10 enterprise because i wanted to try windows 10 but my computer wasnt compatible for the free upgrade. i know i shouldnt have done that but i didnt think much of it cause i know a few people who use a pirated OS. i choose to keep everything i had on my hdd because it would've taken too long to download. well anyway, out of nowhere it's telling me that i need to activate windows after it had said when i first installed it and entered the key that the product key was good. ive tried everything and nothing will work, aside from that i play a lot of games on my laptop and none of my emulators work with windows 10. so i decided to try to downgrade back to windows 7... though i can't because windows 10 removed the windows.old folder. and i can't get a download of it and use my old product key because the sticker that has it printed on it is worn to the point that it looks like i just stuck a random silver sticker on it. buying a new copy of windows isnt an option due to the cost. if i had enough money to buy windows then i would just deal with this and save up to buy the gaming desktop i want. my laptop is a Toshiba Satellite C655D and originally had windows 7 home premium x64, a 250gb hdd, and 4gb of ram. my parents bought it new at walmart for around $200 for me to use for school 4-5 years ago around when i started high school. i hope there is someone that can help me with this, otherwise it looks like im stuck with a useless laptop until i can afford to replace it

You may be able to restore to the factory Win7 installation if the restore partition still exists. It will cost you all your installed apps though.

That's another thing I was afraid of. A friend used my computer one day without my permission and somehow cause my recovery partition to become corrupt. I don't care about losing everything I downloaded now because right after I upgraded to windows 10 I was given 300gb worth of flash drives. It would take a while but I could just back everything up to those. Is there anything I could do? I mean if I have to get a new computer to be able to play games again then oh well. I've been looking into new stuff lately and I can get all the parts to build the desktop I want for gaming for around $450 which Isn't much more than a lot of new laptops. The only problem at $450 for the desktop is that it won't have windows. I have a friend who has windows 7 they are gonna give me when we build my tower but I'm trying to save it for that. I'm planning on buying that by the end of the year. I'm just worried that I'm wrong about how powerful it should be with the parts I'm getting, so I'm trying to keep this laptop going just in case. I play mostly older games from the PSX and PS2 era's, but also some new stuff like CoD, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Madden, etc. My laptop can't handle anything newer than like 2004-2005. I've always been a console gamer so I'm still fairly new to this. PC gaming just seems a lot better from what I've seen and it seems cheaper in the long run. I just haven't quite figured everything out yet. But anyway, here is the parts list I have saved on pcpartpicker.com

CPU: AMD FX-4350 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Gelid Solutions CC-Siberian-01 51.9 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Biostar TA970 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal HDD
GPU: XFX Radeon R7 250 4GB Video Card
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 500W ATX Power Supply
Case Fan: Cooler Master SickleFlow 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan.

Current Price is $507.90 on pcpartpicker but after sales and everything its down to $446.43, I'm not sure if I'm missing anything I need aside from an OS. I have a monitor, keyboard, and a mouse. Would it be easier and smarter to just leave my laptop how it is and buy the parts for this build, then use the copy of windows 7 my friend is giving me on that instead?

It's common for FRPs to become corrupt. But how do you know that's the case?