Hey, i am having a little bit of issues with my acer aspire 5742 series, model number PEW71, with windows home premium 64bit. My hard drive died on me a few weeks ago so i bought a new one. but the laptop came with preinstalled windows on it. Am i able to reinstall windows onto the computer? If so how would i go about doing so.
Shame they don't come with physical media anymore for recovery purposes, almost always it's on the drive in the computer, so if it kicks the can, so does your recovery options.
However, since it's only a hard drive change, yes, you can re-install Windows on the laptop, as the product key is tied to the motherboard, just make sure you have the right version of Windows, that is, that same version that came on your laptop.
Unfortunately, as been said, the website to create a backup disc won't work with OEM keys, not even system builder keys, which are technically OEM keys, lol, as I just tried with mine, luckily it comes with a disc.
So, you'll need to borrow someone's installation disc or as has been said here, contact Acer for a recovery disc, etc. I'd do the latter, that way they could possibly send you a Windows recovery disc that's tailored to your laptop's hardware, although, with a different drive than the one that came in it, it might present a problem for any possible software and/or drivers that were for the old drive, unless you can explain to them that it's a new drive and they can adjust your recovery disc accordingly.
