How to recover my old system

[quetzaly]

Well I will do my best to explain myself and see if someone could help me.

I have a Vaio, laptop that I bought last year. It came with windows 8 installed and then I updated it to windows 8.1. A few weeks ago my laptop "died" and today I went to fix it, the hard drive was damaged so I got a new one and then they installed windows 7 professional. Meanwhile I like W7 I would love to get W8 back so there is something I can do? Like can I find some code of my product on my guarantee/manual or I will have to buy windows 8?

 

[derekimo]

Welcome to the forum,

Windows 8 product keys are embedded in the BIOS and it sounds like they may have used the downgrade rights to install Seven Pro.

You can try one of the options in this tutorial to try and find your key,

Product Key - Find for Windows 8

Option 6 or 8 might be the easiest.

You could then use this tutorial to download the Windows 8 installer,

Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 ISO - Download or Create

You would benefit from joining our sister site Windows 8 Forums for more detailed help.

 

[quetzaly]

Thank you for the quick reply.

I did the option 6 but I only got the key of the Windows 7 and not my Windows 8. I'm not exactly a computer master but, shouldn't I still have the W8 codes since the bios is a different thing that the hard drive? If I open the bios there is a way I can find the key myself?

 

[optiplex gx520]

use this download it is the real thing I booted in a virtual machine
REMOVED UNAUTHORIZED DOWNLOAD LINK

 

[derekimo]

Thank you for the quick reply.

I did the option 6 but I only got the key of the Windows 7 and not my Windows 8.

If they used the downgrade option, (My guess since you say it is Seven Pro) the key is the same for both.

There are more informed minds at our sister site that can help with clearing that up.

Windows 8 Forums