Hard drive crashed i have my windows 7 product key but no disk how to proceed

[lokijo71]

hard drive crashed i have my windows 7 product key but no disk how to proceed

 

[13thmonkey]

Contact your machines manufacturer for the restore disks?

 

[WR2]

Hello lokijo71;

With your license key you're in pretty good shape.

You can download and burn a Win7 installation DVD.
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/w/microsoft_os/1439/revision/36.aspx
Even though the links are hosted in a Dell support forum they're the standard Microsoft .iso images and not Dell specific.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi
The Windows license keys on PC's & laptops from most major manufacturers are not usable on retail Windows as the Manufacturers restore CD/DVD are BIOS locked to motherboard/bios info eg DELL, Samsung, Toshiba, Acer etc

Is your hard disk actually dead or dying or Windows so corrupt you can not start up Windows

You maybe still able to boot to recovery partition and build recovery DVD set
(F12 on Dell)

Some recovery partitions are hidden others also have recovery Windows data on D:\


regards

Mike Barnes

 

[WR2]

Mike is right that a OEM license will not automatically activate a Retail version of Windows 7.

But you should still be able to get a manual activation from Microsoft. They understand about hard driver failures and stuff like that.

Activate Windows 7 on this computer
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/activate-windows-7-on-this-computer
Check the "Activate using the telephone" section.