Bootable USB Drive for Preloaded Windows 8.1 (Laptop)

[debo2606]

I have an almost newly purchased laptop (Intel Pentium Quad Core 4 GB RAM, 500GB HDD) with Windows 8.1 pre loaded. The technical person of the computer shop already made one bootable system recovery pendrive (32 GB) including files of system recovery partition. Now my question is :-

1. Can I make a clean installation of windows 8.1 from my bootable recovery pen drive.

2. If I upgrade to windows 10 (free offer from Microsoft), can I make another bootable recovery pen drive for Windows 10. If so, can I also make a clean installation of Windows 10 later if needed from the 2nd Recovery Pen Drive.

 

[basroil]

1. Can I make a clean installation of windows 8.1 from my bootable recovery pen drive.

Just go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media and follow the instructions.

2. If I upgrade to windows 10 (free offer from Microsoft), can I make another bootable recovery pen drive for Windows 10. If so, can I also make a clean installation of Windows 10 later if needed from the 2nd Recovery Pen Drive.

Like the above (but slightly different program), http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 .

Both are very easy to do, though you should make sure you have a copy of your product key (if your bios lets you view it) just in case.


And I hope that you understand that the laptop specs you mentioned put it at about 6 years of age, not exactly a band new laptop. It'll run Windows 10 just fine if it has integrated graphics, but if it uses Nvidia or AMD graphics you will likely not be able to upgrade to Windows 10.

 

[debo2606]

Your answers are not very clear to me. I am already having one recovery pendrive 32GB. Can I install windows 8.1 from this pen drive (I am already having the genuine product key mentioned in the bottom sticker of my laptop).

I have purchased this laptop in the month of July'15 only, not 6 years back.

 

[basroil]

Your answers are not very clear to me. I am already having one recovery pendrive 32GB. Can I install windows 8.1 from this pen drive (I am already having the genuine product key mentioned in the bottom sticker of my laptop).

The instructions are there on the page below the "Create Media" button. There are just 2 steps necessary to make a clean install using that recovery drive you have.

I have purchased this laptop in the month of July'15 only, not 6 years back.

When you purchased the computer and "from when" that computer is are two different things. However, it was likely my confusion as I forgot that Intel renamed some of their Atom processors to the "Pentium J" And "Pentium N" lines, with the N35X0 being likely. Those indeed have four cores. Those chips were released in 2013 and 2014, but they have not yet been replaced with newer versions. They should be able to run Windows 10 just fine, but you will not be able to use certain features like Client Hyper-V or BitLocker (this is unchanged from Windows 8.1).