Advice on Windows 8 recovery media for OEM Asus Laptop?

[tepe]

Hello, I have a Asus R503U Laptop. The hard drive is toast and I did not create any backup recovery media. I'm looking for a version of Windows 8 that will activate with the product key within the bios. I am having a hard time finding out exactly what I should do.

Some say to contact Microsoft and they will send me a version, or just download the recovery one from the Microsoft site. But I also hear that the retail version of Windows 8 will not activate with an OEM product key.

Or contact Asus, but they seem to charge for recovery media, and there online service shop does not work in the US.

Any advice on where I can get an .ISO, ect. of Windows 8 that will activate on an OEM Asus Laptop?

Thanks

 

[dodger46]

Hello, I have a Asus R503U Laptop. The hard drive is toast and I did not create any backup recovery media. I'm looking for a version of Windows 8 that will activate with the product key within the bios. I am having a hard time finding out exactly what I should do.

Some say to contact Microsoft and they will send me a version, or just download the recovery one from the Microsoft site. But I also hear that the retail version of Windows 8 will not activate with an OEM product key.

Or contact Asus, but they seem to charge for recovery media, and there online service shop does not work in the US.

Any advice on where I can get an .ISO, ect. of Windows 8 that will activate on an OEM Asus Laptop?

Thanks

I'm hoping to work on that problem later this week having bought a Win 8 pre-loaded netbook for the purpose. Meanwhile the only recourse has been to obtain Recovery Media from the Manufacturer as the only legal ISO downloads are for Upgrade/Retail and OEM as purchased from a retail source. The pre-installed or 'White box' OEM key as embedded in your BIOS will not permit downloading of an ISO
. The only possibility I can think of is for you to get a friend with a Windows 8 laptop PC to create a Recovery Drive and boot from that in the hope that it will run and allow you to retrieve the Product Key for Activation...

 

[Someone Somewhere]

You can get recovery media that matches the MSDN hashes from less legitimate sources, however I'm not sure if white-box works with it. I know System Builder OEM activated an HP SLIC one fine, though.

 

[tepe]

en_windows_8_x64_dvd_915440.iso
1CE53AD5F60419CF04A715CF3233F247E48BEEC4
This exact hash is what worked with my config, and from what I know now will work with most current win8 OEM configs.