Recover Win 7 from a dead laptop

[dsscottage]

My laptop died and would not boot. I was unable to fix it so I bought a new laptop.

The hard drive on the dead laptop had a lot of data that I wanted to recover so I bought a HDD enclosure, installed the old HDD and was able to recover my lost data.

However, my new laptop has Windows 8 and I ABSOLUTELY HATE it! I'd like to revert to Windows 7 but I don't have the ability to revert from Win 8 since it's not Win 8 Pro. I also don't really want to purchase an OEM version of Win 7 particularly since I already had it on the old laptop.

The old HDD has a partition called "Recovery" which I expect has the Win 7 installation files. However, there are no files shown in File Explorer. Nonetheless, the properties show 10.4 GB used and 2.07 GB free, so I assume that the files are there but somehow hidden.

Is there any way that I can extract the Win 7 installation files from that RECOVERY drive and then install in on my new laptop?

 

[fireberd]

OEM versions of Operating Systems, most likely what you had on the old PC is only legally licensed for the PC its delivered with.

Have tried one of the programs that makes the desktop look like Win 7? There is a free one and the one I have, Start8. I boot to the desktop just like Windows 7 and the Start menu functions exactly like Windows 7. Start8 has a limited free trial period. The price for the software is only (US)$4.99.

The Windows 8 Start menu returns with Start8!

 

[whs]

You are out of luck. Your old Win7 cannot be transferred. You need to buy a new Win7. But watch out, installing Win7 on an UEFI system is special.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...e-firmware-interface-install-windows-7-a.html